Instructions for your draft Apply activity

Your task is to create a full pipeline that utilises cloud services alongside key DevOps tools. You should discuss the most appropriate piece of work with your team and employer. This could be a small project or part of a larger one, an existing project or something brand new; but whatever you choose, it should be something you can complete within the timescale allowed for this Apply activity. It must also have a real business function; a simulated task doesn’t count.

Your submission should include the following steps:

Introduction

• Explain the context of the project you are working on.
• Write in the first person, clearly stating your own personal input.

Building your application

You will need to show that you can:

• manage source code and build application through pipelines/build jobs with the use of a cloud vendor (i.e., the cloud vendor’s service rather than a 3rd party tool).
• automate the installation and configuration of safe and immutable cloud infrastructure through IaC and Configuration Management – this should be done through an independent tool (such as Terraform & Ansible).
• manage the containerisation and orchestration – this should be done through an independent tool (such as Docker & Kubernetes).
• build and deploy multiple projects through the pipeline.

Please evidence the below:

Cloud Services

• Design architecture of the pipeline
• Storage, access management, networking, and security configuration
• Monitoring configuration
• Source code management, application build management, pipeline creation, deploying of an application
• Use of APIs through cloud service
• Virtual machine creation (automation of creation)

Configuration Management

Note: the below will discuss Ansible as the Configuration Management tool; your company’s Configuration Management tool may differ.

• Created/Updated a configuration file (e.g., an Ansible playbook)
• Created/Updated a Role
• Installed/Removed/Updated software on a Linux/Windows machine using the configuration management tool
• Worked with Static and/or Dynamic data
• Developed and Maintained Roles
• Demonstrated how to secure manage secrets with the configuration management tool

Cloud Provider and IaC

Note: the below will discuss Terraform as the IaC tool; your company’s IaC tool may differ

• Create/Update/Maintain/Delete resources from a cloud vendor with an IaC tool
• Create/Update/Maintain/Use Terraform Modules
• Show how you have used Terraform within a team (emphasis on state management and how issues were circumvented, i.e., state locking with multiple engineers working with a certain environment)
• Deploy and destroy environments using Terraform (may be company specific)
• Automate with CI/CD solution such as Jenkins
• Modularise existing Terraform code where possible
• Demonstrate how to secure manage secrets with Terraform
• Showcase how you’ve used Data Sources in the workplace
• Demonstrate working with Terraform for multiple environments (focus on state file management and variable files)
• Migrate and import current AWS infrastructure to Terraform (may be company specific)

Docker

• Create a Docker Image
• Push an image to an image repository
• Pull an image from an image repository
• Run a Docker container
• Maintain Docker images
• Convert a legacy application/new app to a Docker Image

Kubernetes

• Create a Pod/ReplicaSet/Deployment
• Deploy a Kubernetes Resource
• Delete a Kubernetes Resource
• Update a Pod/ReplicaSet/Deployment/Service or other Kubernetes Resource
• Troubleshoot issue with Kubernetes resource (i.e., pod not starting, how was it diagnosed and resolved)

When you’re ready, select Next to continue.