DevOps Engineering & Cloud Infrastructure (Core Track) Curriculum

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Curriculum

DevOps Engineering & Cloud Infrastructure (Core Track)

A professional 20-week track covering modern DevOps delivery, cloud infrastructure automation, Kubernetes operations, security, observability, and production-grade platform engineering.

Duration: 20 Weeks
Level: Advanced
Study Time: 2 hours/week + labs
School: Cloud & DevOps

Welcome to DevOps Engineering & Cloud Infrastructure (Core Track)! 🎓

This 20-week advanced track develops practical DevOps capability across CI/CD, container orchestration, infrastructure as code, secure delivery, observability, reliability engineering, and operational excellence.

You will complete production-style labs every week, progressively building an end-to-end platform that integrates pipeline automation, Kubernetes operations, Terraform workflows, security controls, and incident response playbooks.

Your success is our priority. By graduation, you will be able to design, implement, and defend a production-ready DevOps platform aligned to modern engineering and governance expectations.

Prerequisites

  • Linux administration fundamentals and command-line confidence.
  • Basic Git usage and understanding of software delivery workflows.
  • Introductory scripting ability (Bash or Python).
  • Commitment to weekly labs, project delivery, and technical documentation.

Essential Resources

  • Kubernetes and Helm official documentation for workload orchestration and release management.
  • Terraform language and provider documentation for module and state best practices.
  • SRE and observability references for SLOs, alerting strategy, and incident handling.
  • DevSecOps guidance for pipeline security, dependency scanning, and policy enforcement.

Learning Roadmap

  • Weeks 1-5 (Delivery Foundations): Linux, Git strategy, CI fundamentals, and containerization.
  • Weeks 6-9 (Kubernetes Operations): Workloads, ingress, secrets, and Helm-based release patterns.
  • Weeks 10-16 (Platform Engineering): Terraform IaC, cloud deployment, release safety, observability, DevSecOps, and GitOps.
  • Weeks 17-20 (Reliability to Capstone): Incident operations, FinOps optimization, full platform build, and executive defense.

Detailed Weekly Curriculum

Each week includes outcomes and practical lab work aligned to the curriculum structure.

Week 1

DevOps Foundations & CI/CD Overview

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • DevOps culture, CALMS principles, and value stream thinking.
  • Linux administration essentials for production environments.
  • Operational mindset for reliability and automation.
Hands-On Scope
  • Create the Week 1 textbook folder tree (preclass-notes, lab-01..lab-04, weekly-project).
  • Provision Linux + Git tooling and run first CI validation on pull request.
  • Troubleshoot a failed pipeline run and document root cause + fix.
Week 2

Docker Fundamentals & Containerization

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Git workflows, branching strategy, and commit hygiene.
  • Repository governance and collaborative development patterns.
  • Pull request quality controls and review standards.
Hands-On Scope
  • Build a production Dockerfile and deterministic image build process.
  • Run compose-based local stack with health checks and environment controls.
  • Scan image vulnerabilities and remediate critical findings before publish.
Week 3

Advanced Docker & Multi-Container Applications

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • CI pipeline stages and quality gates.
  • Build reproducibility, dependency management, and test automation.
  • Pipeline failure diagnosis and remediation patterns.
Hands-On Scope
  • Assemble a multi-container app (API, cache, DB) with startup dependencies.
  • Configure network and persistence behavior across containers.
  • Run service-failure simulation and verify recovery + data integrity.
Week 4

Container CI/CD & Automation

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Container runtime model and image lifecycle.
  • Dockerfile best practices and multi-stage builds.
  • Image security and deterministic builds.
Hands-On Scope
  • Automate build-test-scan-publish stages for container releases.
  • Implement gated promotion from staging to production tags.
  • Execute rollback drill to a known-stable image.
Week 5

Kubernetes Architecture & Core Concepts

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Container networking modes and service communication.
  • Volume management and data durability patterns.
  • Runtime observability and debugging techniques.
Hands-On Scope
  • Deploy first workloads to Kubernetes and validate cluster readiness.
  • Create namespace and workload boundaries for platform/app services.
  • Troubleshoot one scheduling or image-pull issue end-to-end.
Week 6

Kubernetes Workloads & Configuration

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Kubernetes control plane and worker node responsibilities.
  • Workload primitives: Deployments, ReplicaSets, and Pods.
  • Scheduling behavior and resource management.
Hands-On Scope
  • Implement ConfigMaps, Secrets, and probe strategy for workloads.
  • Run rolling updates and verify zero-downtime behavior.
  • Deploy stateful component and validate restart persistence.
Week 7

Kubernetes Networking & Storage

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Service discovery and traffic routing patterns.
  • Ingress controller fundamentals and path/host routing.
  • Network policies and segmentation controls.
Hands-On Scope
  • Configure Services, Ingress, and TLS routing for app exposure.
  • Provision PV/PVC workflows and validate storage behavior.
  • Apply NetworkPolicies and test allowed/blocked communication paths.
Week 8

Advanced Kubernetes Patterns

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • ConfigMaps, Secrets, and secure configuration workflows.
  • StatefulSets and persistent volume claims.
  • Operational considerations for stateful workloads.
Hands-On Scope
  • Apply HPA, anti-affinity, and PDB resilience controls.
  • Run controlled failure scenarios to test self-healing.
  • Tune resource requests/limits from observed metrics.
Week 9

Helm & Kubernetes Package Management

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Helm chart structure and templating strategy.
  • Values management across environments.
  • Chart testing and release lifecycle.
Hands-On Scope
  • Package workloads as Helm charts with env-specific values files.
  • Publish versioned charts and deploy through release flow.
  • Execute chart upgrade + rollback safety test.
Week 10

Infrastructure as Code with Terraform

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Terraform workflow, state, and dependency graph.
  • Provider configuration and module decomposition.
  • Idempotent infrastructure delivery principles.
Hands-On Scope
  • Provision core infrastructure using modular Terraform code.
  • Configure remote state backend with locking and access controls.
  • Run validated plan/apply workflow with approvals.
Week 11

Advanced Terraform & Cloud Provisioning

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Remote state backends and locking strategy.
  • Reusable module design for platform teams.
  • Environment promotion and drift management.
Hands-On Scope
  • Refactor Terraform modules for multi-environment reuse.
  • Run drift detection and controlled remediation workflow.
  • Add policy-as-code checks to block unsafe plans.
Week 12

GitOps & Advanced CI/CD

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Core cloud services for compute, storage, and networking.
  • IAM and least-privilege deployment controls.
  • Reliability and scalability design decisions.
Hands-On Scope
  • Deploy GitOps controller and repository-driven sync model.
  • Implement PR-based promotion with approvals and policy checks.
  • Trigger and observe automated drift reconciliation.
Week 13

Monitoring, Logging & Observability

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Release strategies: blue/green, canary, and rolling updates.
  • Environment promotion and deployment approvals.
  • Rollback strategy and release risk management.
Hands-On Scope
  • Instrument services with metrics, logs, and traces.
  • Define SLI/SLO targets and configure alerting thresholds.
  • Perform outage RCA using telemetry correlation.
Week 14

Advanced CI/CD Pipeline Engineering

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Observability pillars and telemetry architecture.
  • Prometheus/Grafana and centralized log pipelines.
  • SLO/SLI/SLA model and alert tuning.
Hands-On Scope
  • Build reusable multi-stage pipelines and template libraries.
  • Enable artifact signing/provenance controls and approvals.
  • Optimize pipeline runtime with cache/selective execution.
Week 15

Advanced Deployment Strategies

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Shift-left security in CI/CD pipelines.
  • SAST, dependency scanning, and secret detection.
  • Runtime security controls and policy enforcement.
Hands-On Scope
  • Implement blue/green and canary deployment paths.
  • Configure automated rollback on error threshold breach.
  • Run deployment game day to validate safety controls.
Week 16

Service Mesh & Advanced Networking

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • GitOps operating model and desired state reconciliation.
  • ArgoCD/Flux workflow and sync policies.
  • Operational governance for platform teams.
Hands-On Scope
  • Deploy service mesh and enforce mTLS between services.
  • Apply retries/timeouts/circuit-breakers for unstable dependencies.
  • Measure service path latency and failure propagation.
Week 17

Advanced Observability & SRE Practices

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • SRE practices, error budgets, and reliability metrics.
  • Incident command workflow and communication standards.
  • Root cause analysis and corrective action planning.
Hands-On Scope
  • Run incident simulation with on-call roles and timelines.
  • Track MTTR and error-budget impact during response.
  • Execute postmortem and implement prioritized fixes.
Week 18

DevSecOps & Security

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Cost visibility, allocation, and optimization strategies.
  • Performance tuning methodology and bottleneck analysis.
  • Capacity planning and scaling economics.
Hands-On Scope
  • Embed SAST/dependency/container checks in CI pipelines.
  • Implement secrets management and least-privilege runtime access.
  • Map threat scenarios to control implementations and test closure.
Week 19

Production Optimization & Cost Management

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Architect an end-to-end DevOps platform solution.
  • Integrate CI/CD, IaC, observability, and security controls.
  • Prepare production-readiness evidence and governance assets.
Hands-On Scope
  • Baseline cost and performance by service/environment.
  • Apply rightsizing/scaling optimizations without SLO regression.
  • Configure budget controls and anomaly alerting.
Week 20

Capstone Project & Production Deployment

2 hours + labs
Learning Outcomes
  • Operational hardening and resilience validation.
  • Executive communication of architecture trade-offs and risk posture.
  • Final technical defense and roadmap recommendations.
Hands-On Scope
  • Deliver complete capstone release from IaC provisioning to production deployment.
  • Execute final production readiness review (security, resilience, observability, recovery).
  • Present architecture and operations defense with evidence-backed decisions.