DevOps skills are poised to be one of the fastest-growing skills in the workforce. IBM has expanded its range of credentials on Coursera with a new beginner-level Specialization and a Professional Certificate for those wanting to embark on a career in DevOps.

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DevOps is a term that has entered the lexicon in recent years. According to Wikipedia:

DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality. DevOps is complementary with Agile software development; several DevOps aspects came from the Agile methodology. 

and to quote from Coursera:

DevOps is more than just a fusion of development and operations. It is the cultural change that organizations everywhere are adopting to become more agile and innovate at scale.​ It makes it easier to deliver software and services at the speed the market demands.

Whatever you take the term to mean at this point in time one way to expand your understanding would be to enrol in Introduction To Devops, a new course from IBM on Coursera that is the strarting point for both the IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate and the DevOps, Cloud, and Agile Foundations Specialization also from IBM.

At beginner level Introduction To Devops is estimated to require 9 hours of effort and in it students will learn:

• The essential characteristics of DevOps including building a culture of shared responsibility, transparency, and embracing failure.
• The importance of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, Infrastructure as Code, Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Development.
• Essential DevOps concepts: software engineering practices, cloud native microservices, automated continuous deployments, and building resilient code.
• The organizational impact of DevOps, including breaking down silos, working in cross functional teams, and sharing responsibilities.

This course could well be completed within the 7-day free trial period you are given when signing up to either of the longer programs. 

The DevOps, Cloud and Agile Foundations Specialization requires approximately 4 months to complete - but that is at a pace of 2 hours per week and as it is self-paced many students will do it much faster. It includes another two, relatively short, courses and all three courses have an "Applied Leaning Project". In the case of Introduction to Cloud Computing the hands-on element is to create a cloud account and provision a service on cloud. This is another relatively short course, requiring 12 hours effort which intends to provide the foundational knowledge required for understanding cloud computing and is the starting point for several specializations, including the new Cloud Application Development Foundations Specialization,.

The third course in the Devops Specialization is Introduction to Agile Development and Scrum, requiring 10 hours effort and covering Agile philosophy, and Scrum methodology with the hands-on task of developing an Agile plan with ZenHub by writing user stories, and simulating a Scrum sprint. 

While the full IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate starts with the same three courses it includes another nine short courses. The first six of these introduce you to the Linus operating system, Git and Git Hub Python coding and microservices, test driven development and come from existing IBM Professional Certificates. The final three courses are completely new, starting later this month and in April, and are at Intermediate level:

4. Hands-on Introduction to Linux Commands and Shell Scripting (9 hours)

5, Getting Started with Git and GitHub (8 hours)

6. Python for Data Science, AI & Development (19 hours)

7. Python Project for AI & Application Development (7 hours)

8. Introduction to Containers with Docker, Kubernetes & OpenShift (12 hours)

9. Application Development using Microservices and Serverless (10 hours)

10. Test and Behavior Driven Development (TDD/BDD)

11. Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)

12. Application Security and Monitoring

The final element is the DevOps Capstone Project in which you demonstrate your proficiency in DevOps practices by developing, testing, deploying, monitoring, and enhancing a secure microservices-based application on Cloud, over the course of several sprints, using a variety of Agile, Cloud Native, and CI/CD technologies and tools.

As we have reported before, such credentials are quickly gaining traction and an IBM Professional Certificate is likely to be a good addition to your CV. 

More Information

Introduction To Devops

DevOps, Cloud, and Agile Foundations Specialization

Introduction to Cloud Computing

IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate

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