The software world has changed dramatically in recent years. From the underlying infrastructure such as operating systems and databases, to basic fields such as distributed systems, big data, cloud computing, and machine learning, from monolithic applications, MVC, service-based, to micro-service-based and other application development models, from IaaS, PaaS, etc. , CaaS to FaaS, operation and maintenance technology (especially the operation and maintenance of large-scale complex distributed systems) has become more and more important, and it has become the core of IT enterprises to improve productivity.
Outsiders say that operation and maintenance is just passive and inefficient manual firefighting, and enterprises do not pay much attention to it. When it comes to operation and maintenance, the words that many people can think of are "hard work", "hard work", "overtime", "back-office". pot". With the strong support of big data, artificial intelligence, and container technology, the traditional technical job of operation and maintenance has transformed from the stereotype of "mechanical labor" and has become a core technology that any technology company must rely on and invest heavily in ability.
However, as more and more attention is paid to operation and maintenance, the operation and maintenance system is gradually enriched, and concepts such as DevOps have emerged to connect processes such as R&D, testing, and operation and maintenance. The container technology reconstructs the operation and maintenance from the bottom layer, connecting the whole process of development, testing, deployment, operation and monitoring, and further promotes the gradual migration of the operation and maintenance system from tool-based to platform-based, automated and intelligent.
Now, the development prospects of operation and maintenance personnel have also begun to make many programmers envious. As a Linux operation and maintenance personnel, how has your Linux operation and maintenance road been in the past year?
Overview of the current status of operation and maintenance in 2017
The operation and maintenance work involves a wide range.
Operation and maintenance is a comprehensive technical position that integrates multiple disciplines (network, system, security, application architecture, storage, etc.) It is better to have a hard life in operation and maintenance, facing the computer, adjusting one afternoon for one afternoon".
Increased attention.
With the continuous expansion of enterprise business and the growth of operation and maintenance needs, generally small enterprises have this position, but the emphasis is not high, the substitutability is strong, and the job responsibilities are also different, but the current large enterprises have attached great importance to operation and maintenance. Department, and invest in key experience for team building.
Containerization accelerates.
The capabilities that containers bring to enterprise IT are mainly reflected in two aspects: rapid delivery and continuous innovation capabilities before delivery, and efficient management and operation and maintenance capabilities after delivery. In addition, when it is impossible to distinguish between good and bad operation and maintenance capabilities, the continuity of the business system will be the only indicator, and the lightweight features and second-level startup capabilities of container technology bring opportunities for “equipment” upgrades for this indicator. , thus ensuring the continuity and high availability of the entire system. With the gradual acceptance of the container concept by domestic enterprises, its in-depth application in operation and maintenance work has become an unavoidable technical problem in this field.
Cloud computing/IAAS acceleration.
This is an important part of future operation and maintenance that cannot be bypassed. There are mainly two types of enterprises in the final operation and maintenance work. One is IAAS suppliers, such as AWS and Alibaba Cloud. They need extremely strong operation and maintenance. Tools and platform research and development capabilities or strong management capabilities for hardware (server hardware and network hardware, etc.) are mainly required for senior employees. That is to say, you no longer have the opportunity to touch the computer room and physical hardware in the current operation and maintenance work (the good news is that you don't need to worry about hosting, and the system is installed on the shelf). This is where most jobs will be required in the future. Maybe you will ask what about idc/private cloud? They will still exist for a long time, but they will not occupy a major position, which means that they will not be able to provide enough or growing jobs. Besides, enterprises that can survive in the cracks of the public cloud market will only have higher requirements for talents.
Integration of Operations and Maintenance (DevOps).
The concept of DevOps was first heated up in Europe in 2009, due to the pain of operation and maintenance of the traditional model. But why did it take so many years to "fire"? Is it because it does not follow the "hidden rules" of operation and maintenance? Not also. This is because the development of DevOps is not a forest alone, and now there are more and more technical supports. The concept of microservice architecture and container technology make the implementation of DevOps easier. The improvement of computing power and the development of cloud environment make the rapidly developed products can be widely used immediately. In 2017, we have not only seen Internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Airbnb in close contact with DevOps, but also traditional software companies such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, etc., or Apple, the non-core network business. Walmart, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Starbucks, etc. are all adopting DevOps, and we have seen a large number of domestic companies start to love it. The reason is very simple. The "wall of chaos" between development and operation and maintenance that could not be "forcibly demolished" for a long time finally fell apart when DevOps arrived!
Job skills have changed dramatically.
The recruitment requirements for Linux operation and maintenance feel that the recruitment requirements for the same salary in previous years are much higher, and they have to know various open source tools. They also need to understand K8S and docker. Anyone with a salary of more than 15K must be able to use python, and they must have a certain python web development ability. At this time in 2016, the general operation and maintenance requirements are: shell/python/php, choose one of three, and you can click, but in 2017 Years are different, python must have certain web development capabilities. If you don't need to know python, you will also need to be proficient in the shell.
Job boundaries are blurred.
With the widespread application of cloud computing technology, all services are developed based on Alibaba Cloud and AWS services. Traditional operation and maintenance has gradually shifted to cloud service operation and maintenance, and cloud services have integrated traditional operation and maintenance monitoring and system maintenance. It is very good. What is needed is an engineer who is familiar enough with cloud services, can design a reasonable cloud computing architecture for the business, and can ensure the smooth testing, deployment and integration of the code. For such an engineer position, you can say devops or say yes Whether it is development or not, the boundaries are really not so clear.
Analysis of the development prospect of operation and maintenance
The current linux operation and maintenance practitioners generally have relatively low technical ability (the high ones have done development), long-term replaceable repetitive work content, high work pressure (on duty), and high responsibility pressure ( Various pots), narrower career development space, these do create a lot of negative perceptions of the position. I personally think that the fundamental problem is that people are restricted by their positions and lack the subjective initiative to improve themselves. Speaking of people, it means that they have no ideas about their careers (having a meal is not an idea) or lacking motivation (to get or keep their jobs before going Learning is at best a stage drive, but careers are long).
The technical content and requirements of operation and maintenance engineers will become higher and higher in the future. At the same time, they are also the people who are most familiar with the company's applications and architecture, and they will receive more and more attention. Relevant experience in operation and maintenance work will become very important, and it will also become the core competitiveness of individuals, with good ability to solve problems at all levels, provide solutions, and think globally. Since the operation and maintenance positions are exposed to a very broad range of knowledge, such as the kernel, network, development, database, etc., it is particularly important to improve the knowledge system of the operation and maintenance personnel. Do it very well and become an expert in it.
How to learn operation and maintenance technology
This is the tip of the iceberg of the profound changes taking place in the technology world, so the question is? How to transform as a traditional operation and maintenance?
Here is a little suggestion: roughly need to learn these four parts:
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Automated Operations (Ansible, Puppet, Saltstack, etc.)
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Devops（Docker，K8s，Jenkins，Jira等），
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Cloud service technology (virtualization, OpenStack, AWS and Alibaba Cloud various product service architectures, etc.)
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python
Professional advice: Don't despise yourself, let alone the position of operation and maintenance. As long as you recognize this position, go on firmly, and learn new technologies well, you can still have a good way out.
This year and next are two years of rapid integration of operation and maintenance and development, so if you haven't started learning python, you should start as soon as possible.
The progress of the times will not wait for you.