[PLUG] Learning Linux Sys Admin & Linux/Open Source tools

[Rich Burroughs]

I'm one of the organizers of DevOpsDays PDX so yay for you getting
something out of it worth mentioning :)

The OP was talking about training or the lack of it, and I do think that's
a challenge. I was talking about my own transition into this kind of role
and honestly it involved a lot of work on my own time and expense.

Some of these tools are so new and in a lot of flux, as I mentioned. Seeing
talks at users groups or even recorded conference talks can help. I've done
some online training as well. Places like Treehouse and Linux Academy were
things I could afford on my own. Linux Academy has some courses around Chef
and Puppet if I remember correctly. I also have a Safari Books Online
subscription and I think that's a good call for me at least, as I get
access to so many books.

Besides the Puppet user's group, it looks like there's a Chef user's group
that just started up again. There's also one for Docker, and some other
cloud related groups. I've been to one called Cloud Native that was pretty
good. I think that all of them are on the Meetup site/app.

Speaking of conferences, there's a good local one later this month called
Automacon that's reasonably priced for a conference and has some really
great speakers lined up. I went last year and it was well worth the money:

http://www.automacon.io

People have been talking about networking and I think that is really huge.
Getting involved in the Puppet community was a big factor in me getting a
job there. I started off attending the user's group, and later ended up
speaking there a couple of times.

I sort of hate that term networking because it has a bit of a negative
connotation to me. But it doesn't have to be negative. I've found that
things like attending user's groups, conferences, and meeting people
through places like Twitter have all been fun and helped me a lot. Back in
the day when I was starting out I actually had several job opportunities
come directly from being involved with PLUG. Instead of "networking" I
think of things like it more like finding opportunities to meet some rad,
smart people, to learn from them, and have fun.

As I mentioned earlier, I think one of the fundamental shifts in thinking
between being a traditional sysadmin and being an Ops Engineer (or whatever
the company calls it), is that idea of having automated tests for your
infrastructure code. If I was interviewing for an Ops Enginner role I'd
want to make it clear that I had some experience with at least unit testing
tools and that I understood the importance of testing. Taking a Ruby class
to learn some Rspec could help, or learing some Python testing tools.
Serverspec is popular too. It lets you stand up a VM and apply your code to
it, and then check to see if it worked.

I don't think I'd ever written a unit test in my life, but shops with these
kinds of roles (or SRE roles) are likely to put a lot of importance on it.
Also being able to interact with APIs, or even better being able to write a
small app that provides an API. Those are the kinds of things I'd be
looking to learn to make that jump from sysadmin to engineer.


Rich

P.S. Paying for classes and conferences on your own kind of sucks and I
understand that some people are not able or willing to do that. In my case
I felt like it was worth it because I knew I wanted to make it into a
better shop, and what it would take to get there. You have to do what's
right for your own situation though.


On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 11:57 AM Larry Brigman <larry.brigman at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I found a couple of things recently that might be of use.
> http://devopsbootcamp.osuosl.org/
> http://tfitch.com/automation-tools-bootcamp/vagrant.html
>
> I got these from an Open Spaces session at DevOps Days PDX.
>
> I've looked at both of their lists and it covers most of the things that I
> use just about every day in my work with my development team.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 4:07 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 31 Aug 2016, Mike C. wrote:
> >
> > > There's a few rubs here that I'll enumerate for contemplation /
> > > conversation sake.
> >
> > > 2. There's a really big communication gap to be bridged between a
> resume
> > /
> > > cover letter and the hiring manager that usually includes HR,
> recruiters
> > > and poorly written job descriptions that are based on "what you're good
> > > at" now and not on "how you can learn, change, grow and contribute to
> the
> > > company in the future."
> >
> > Mike,
> >
> >    You have no control over poorly written job descriptions. Just ask the
> > contractors Portland hired for huge software projects! But, you do have
> > control over how you approach finding a job that fits you like custom
> > shoes.
> >
> >    The cover letter has one purpose: to get the recipient to read your
> > resume. That's all.
> >
> >    Your resume has only one purpose: to get invited to an interview.
> >
> >    At the interview -- with the technical folks with whom you'll work --
> > you
> > have the opportunity to probe for what they think they need and how
> you'll
> > fit in the corporate culture. I offer no ideas on dealing with HR folks
> as
> > I've never had to do so.
> >
> > > Over my 15 years of working in the IT field, I've seen a reluctance of
> > > companies to invest in employees and build customized systems and
> > software
> > > in-house to meet a businesses needs.
> >
> >    That's really unfortuate and can limit the business' future. In the
> > mid-1980s I was developing dBASE III and Paradox applications for
> > businesses
> > who did not want to change how they did business to fit what the
> > shrink-wrapped packages did. For example, a gas station that sold fuel by
> > the 10th of a gallon but purchased it by the gallon. No available
> > accounting
> > software accommodated that. Another client was a fabric store that bought
> > by
> > the bolt but sold by the 1/3rd of a yard.
> >
> > > It's a different world now, especially in Portland. where Linux
> oriented
> > > jobs are being driven by software development companies. Great for
> Linux!
> > > Difficult for ol' school Linux SysAdmin folks who love and appreciate
> > > Linux and want to be able to make a living working with it.
> >
> >    But, there probably are many SME (small-to-medium size enterprises)
> who
> > would value your knowledge and experiences. Pardon the cliche, but think
> > outside your experiences. Next month there's a Networking After Work
> > meeting
> > that might be worth the money for you to attend. Why? Because the couple
> I
> > went to last year were filled with folks from hotels, restaurants, law
> > firms, and other retail-facing businesses. None prospective clients for
> me,
> > but they might be a target for your job search.
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> > Rich
> > _______________________________________________
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> > PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> >
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