Dev containers are a powerful tool for developers to use when coding, testing, and debugging applications. VSCode provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for developers to use when working with dev containers. This guide will show you how to get started with dev containers in VSCode and how to use them to your best advantage.
Install the Remote – Containers extension
Create a dev container configuration file
Launch the dev container
Connect to the dev container
Start coding!
Installing the Remote – Containers Extension
The first step to using dev containers is to install the Remote – Containers extension. This extension allows you to create dev container configurations and launch them from within VSCode. To install the extension, open the Extensions panel in VSCode and search for Remote – Containers. Click the ‘Install’ button to install the extension. After installation, you will need to restart VSCode for the extension to take effect.
Creating a Dev Container Configuration File
Once the Remote – Containers extension is installed, you can create a dev container configuration file. This file will define the environment for your dev container. For example, you can define the programming language, libraries, and other settings for your dev container. You can also specify a base image to be used by the dev container, such as a Linux or Windows image.
Example Dev Container Configuration File
Below is an example of a dev container configuration file. This configuration file specifies a base image of Ubuntu 18.04, a programming language of Python, and a library of TensorFlow.
Once your dev container configuration file is created, you can launch the dev container. To do this, open the Remote – Containers view in VSCode. You should see your dev container configuration file listed. Click the Launch button to start the dev container. Once the dev container is launched, you will be able to access a terminal window, allowing you to control the dev container.
Connecting to the Dev Container
Once the dev container is running, you can connect to it. To do this, open the Remote – SSH view in VSCode. You should see your dev container listed. Click the Connect button to connect to the dev container. Once connected, you will be able to access the dev container’s terminal window and run commands.
Start Coding!
Now that you’ve connected to the dev container, you can start coding! You can use the integrated development environment (IDE) to write, debug, and test your code. This allows you to work on your project within the dev container, without the need for additional setup. Once you’re done, you can close the dev container and move on to the next project.
As a platform engineer, you will be tasked with ensuring that software projects run smoothly and efficiently. This includes managing all of the various components needed to develop and launch an app or system.
This may include choosing your development platform, setting up servers for hosting, finding vendors for integrations, and more. Beyond just technology, there are also time-management strategies to manage your day.
As you can imagine, being a part of this team comes with its own set of challenges and responsibilities. Being a senior member of the team takes some work — but it is totally worth it!
Being a senior developer means that you know what’s going on technologically, and you’re able to teach others that knowledge. You’ll have the opportunity to make an impact by helping other engineers get things done effectively.
It’s also important to remember that not everyone has a career in tech like you do, so don’t feel like you need to take over every task.
Plan your career
As mentioned earlier, being a successful platform engineer is more than just knowing how to work in different environments having separate and distinctly different conversations with various people about what tools you use for each environment, and how to manage your time effectively between projects and departments. It also means planning your career ahead of time.
Most experienced devs will tell you that it’s impossible to become a senior developer without first becoming a team lead or manager. This makes sense, because you need to establish relationships within the department and organization that depend on you for leadership, guidance, and resources.
And since most tech companies are moving towards agile project management systems like Scrum, you need to be able to facilitate those meetings, talk about logistics, and make sure everyone has everything they need to complete their assignments on schedule.
All of these things require someone who leads by example, sets appropriate priorities, and keeps people motivated so that they feel comfortable coming to you for help when needed. You can’t expect anyone lower up the chain-of-command to do this if they don’t see you putting in the effort into developing your leadership skills.
It’s totally normal to want to move up the ladder, but making changes to your position requires proving that you’re capable of doing so while still keeping quality control over your tasks and setting realistic deadlines.
Create a good work-life balance
Being a platform engineer means having close relationships with other people in your organization that depend on you for success, so make sure you are not overworking yourself.
It is important to enjoy what you do for a living, and staying motivated requires finding time to unwind and relax. You can’t expect to be passionate about your job if you don’t take care of yourself outside of work.
You need to recognize that it takes a lot out of you, both physically and mentally, and give yourself breaks to keep up momentum. Take frequent vacations, organize social events outside of work, and try to limit how many hours you spend working every day.
In addition to taking care of yourself, use the same energy you put into your career on your personal life to promote healthy relationships and friendships.
Having friends who treat you well will help you feel more balanced and confident in your position, and they will help you stay happier at home. Try to meet someone new once a week, if possible, to maintain strong ties with family members and colleagues.
Be a creative thinker
As a platform engineer, you will be tasked with many different projects and responsibilities. This can make it hard to know what your next job is! As such, being able to think outside of the box and brainstorm new ideas and solutions to current issues is important.
You will have to use your creativity to figure out how to best solve these problems.
A great way to hone this skill is by taking part in various tech events or masterclasses. You may even get chance to present your own project or idea!
By attending events like these, not only do they give you knowledge about the field, but also lots of opportunities to improve yourself professionally.
Stay up-to-date with technology
As a platform engineer, you will be tasked with keeping up with new technologies. This is not only important for your career, but also to satisfy users’ demands for quality services they can rely on.
As more companies implement automation via software or robotics, there are always new tools being used for this process. You will need to know what these tools are and how to use them.
You will also have to stay up-to-date with the ever-evolving practices in both development and operations. For example, when developers adopt newer agile methodologies like scrum, you must understand why that approach is better than the traditional waterfall model.
Likewise, understanding lean startup methodology means knowing why it works and if it applies to your organization. These concepts help bring down the overhead of launching an app by reducing the number of steps needed to get things going.
By staying informed about such developments, you will make sure apps launch as quickly as possible while still meeting standards.
Be a good leader
As a platform engineer, you will be in charge of many different departments within your organization. You can expect that not every department in your own company or others you work with have strong leadership qualities.
If this is something that worries you, don’t worry! It’s totally normal.
It takes time to develop leadership skills, but you are never too young or old to learn them.
You can always look to those around you for examples of how to lead and learn from their mistakes. There are several books and courses available online and through educational institutions that focus on developing leadership abilities.
There are also mentorship programs where experienced leaders share knowledge and resources with younger people. By being part of these groups, you could gain some valuable lessons yourself.
Be a good team member
As a platform engineer, your success will depend on how well you collaborate with others. You can’t have successful collaborations if one party is constantly trying to get their way or take over the process.
This isn’t helpful for anyone involved in the project, and it won’t set well with leadership either. Make every effort to work with people around you using sound reasoning and evidence, and keep discussions focused on topics that are productive and positive.
Avoid gossip unless you want to deal with a lot of resentment later, and be willing to go beyond what is practical or appropriate to help someone feel better about themselves or the situation.
Creating a pipeline in Gitlab is a great way to deploy applications to various environments. It allows you to automate the process of building, testing, and deploying your application. With Gitlab, you can define a pipeline that consists of a series of stages, which can include tasks such as building the application, running tests, and deploying the application. By leveraging the power of a pipeline, you can ensure that your application is deployed quickly, efficiently, and with minimal hassle. This guide will walk you through the steps to create a pipeline in Gitlab, with code examples.
Step 1: Creating a New Project
To start a new pipeline, you will first need to create a new project in Gitlab. To do this, you can go to Projects > New Project and fill out the form.
Step 2: Creating the Pipeline
Once the project is created, you can go to CI/CD > Pipelines and create a new pipeline. You will be able to define the stages and tasks for the pipeline, and even add code snippets to configure the pipeline. Here is an example of a simple pipeline:
Once you have created the pipeline, you can run it by going to CI/CD > Pipelines and clicking the “Run Pipeline” button. This will execute the pipeline, and you can check the progress of the pipeline in the pipeline view.
Step 4: Troubleshooting
If you encounter any issues while running the pipeline, you can click on the pipeline to open up the pipeline view. Here, you will be able to view the log output of each stage, and debug any issues that may be occurring.
Conclusion
Creating a pipeline in Gitlab is a great way to easily deploy applications to various environments. By leveraging the power of a pipeline, you can ensure that your application is deployed quickly, efficiently, and with minimal hassle. This guide has walked you through the steps to create a pipeline in Gitlab, with code examples.
Building efficient development pipelines in Kubernetes requires the right tooling, a lot of planning, and a good understanding of your development processes.
To quickly build and deliver robust products and benefit from automation and efficient collaboration, the software team relies on continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Implementing CI/CD for cloud native applications makes delivery cycles more robust while streamlining the development and deployment workflow.
Let’s talk about the key components of a CI/CD pipeline, how to optimize these pipelines and some recommended best practices and tools.
What Makes an efficient CI/CD Pipeline
The Kubernetes platform and CI/CD workflows both aim to improve software quality, as well as automate and boost development velocity. So companies benefit from having CI/CD pipelines to use with Kubernetes.
The following are some key components of a Kubernetes-based CI/CD pipeline:
Containers help achieve encapsulation of application components while enabling seamless integration through runtimes.
Operating clusters deploy the containers for your software build once the CI/CD tool approves the containers.
Configuration management stores all details related to the infrastructure setup and identifies any newly introduced change in the system.
A version control system (VCS) is a unified source code repository that maintains code changes. This generates the trigger for a CI/CD tool to start the pipeline whenever a new change is pushed into its repository.
Image registries store container images.
Security testing and audits maintain the equilibrium between rapid development and security of the application by ensuring the pipelines are free from potential security threats.
Continuous monitoring and observability allow developers to obtain actionable insights and metrics by providing complete visibility into the application life cycle.
Key Considerations to Make Your Pipeline Effective
CI/CD sits at the core of DevOps practice, enabling a sustainable model to streamline and accelerate production releases. A comprehensive understanding of the workflow is fundamental to building an effective CI/CD pipeline, along with evaluating the enterprise requirement to help choose the right framework.
Below are some key considerations for making your pipeline effective:
All-in-one CI/CD tool vs. case-specific solutions: Similar to the infrastructure setup, it is crucial to diligently assess the available CI/CD tools based on use cases, technical requirements and organizational goals.
On-premises vs. managed vs. hybrid CI/CD: Each CI/CD pipeline type has its own effectiveness, depending on your requirements and infrastructure. Factors that determine the type of CI/CD pipeline to choose include ease of use, ease of setup, infrastructure and operating system support.
Code testing and validation: An effective validation and automated testing framework is one of the core components of a CI/CD pipeline. This ensures a stable build with zero code-quality issues while highlighting potential failure scenarios.
Rollbacks: These help organizations redeploy the previous stable release of an application. Implementing a diligently planned rollback mechanism in CI/CD is vital to safeguarding the application in case of failure or security incidents.
Defining a Kubernetes-Based CI/CD Pipeline
While defining a Kubernetes-based CI/CD pipeline, you can go with one of the two major paradigms below.
Push-Based Pipeline
An external system like a CI pipeline generates build triggers to deploy the changes to the Kubernetes cluster following a commit to a version control system repository in a push-based pipeline. Kubernetes cluster credentials are exposed outside the domain of the cluster in such a model.
Pull-Based Pipeline
Kubernetes operators deploy the changes from inside a cluster whenever new images are pushed to the registry in a pull-based pipeline.
Some Best Practices
Here are some recommendations for building an effective Kubernetes CI/CD pipeline. These include some useful best practices.
Avoid Hardcoding Secrets and Configurations in Containers
You should store configurations in configmap and not hardcode them in the containers. This provides the flexibility of deploying the same container in different environments without making environment-specific changes to it.
It’s also recommended to keep secrets out of containers and encrypt and store them in Kubernetes Secrets. This prevents credentials from getting exposed through a version control system in a CI/CD pipeline.
Use Helm for Deployments
Use the Helm package manager for Kubernetes application deployments to keep track of releases or logical groupings.
Enable Git-Based Workflows
To allow for all infrastructure configurations to be stored within git, CI/CD pipelines should follow a GitOps methodology. It makes infrastructure code more accessible to developers, letting them review the changes before they’re deployed.
Git also provides a unified source repository and snapshots of the cluster. These are easy for developers to refer to as needed and recover the application to the last stable state in the case of failure.
Use Canary/Blue-Green Deployment Patterns
Parallel to the running production instances, running a blue-green pattern of instances lets you test changes and switch over traffic when testing is complete, eliminating the need for downtime during deployment.
Cache and Reuse Container Images
Use caching and reuse features of Docker container images to minimize container build times and reduce the risk of introducing defects into the newly built container image.
Tools for Kubernetes CI/CD Pipelines
All-in-One CI/CD Tools
GitHub Actions is an open source CI/CD tool that supports automated build, test and deployment pipelines. It is the preferred CI/CD platform when the source code repository is GitHub.
GitLab CI/CD facilitates the continuous build, test and deployment of software applications without the need for third-party integration. Checkout our article on implementing a Gitlab pipeline for your project.
Jenkins (including Jenkins X) is an open source, automation server that promotes CI and CD in varying levels of cluster complexity, enabling developers to automate application build, test and deployment processes seamlessly across hybrid/multicloud setups. Jenkins X is an upgraded version that facilitates automated CI/CD for cloud native containerized applications and orchestration tools like Kubernetes or Docker.
Rancher Fleet is fundamentally a set of Kubernetes custom resource definitions (CRDs) and controllers that manage GitOps for a single Kubernetes cluster or a large scale deployment of Kubernetes clusters. It is a distributed initialization system that makes it easy to customize applications and manage HA clusters from a single point.
CI Tools
Circle CI is a cloud-based CI tool that uses an API to facilitate automatic Kubernetes deployments. It is intensely focused on testing the new commit before deploying via various methods like unit testing, integration testing, etc. Because of its features for implementing complex pipelines with configurations like caching and resource classes, it is one of the most popular lightweight integration tools for a Kubernetes ecosystem.
Drone CI is an open source CI tool built entirely on Docker that uses a container-first approach. The plugins, components and pipeline stages of Drone are deployed and executed as Docker containers. The platform offers a wide range of flexibility for using different tools and environments for the build, but you have to integrate it with a git repository.
CD Tools
Spinnaker is an open source continuous delivery tool that integrates with multiple cloud providers. Since the platform does not rely on a GitOps model, config files can be stored in the cloud provider’s storage.
Argo CD is a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool that is lightweight, easy to configure and purpose-built for Kubernetes. The platform considers git the source of truth, which enhances security, making access control and permission management easier to administer.
Automation and Infrastructure Configuration Tools
Terraform by Hashicorp is an open source Infrastructure as Code tool that facilitates DevOps teams’ ability to provision and manage infrastructure programmatically via configuration files.
Red Hat Ansible is an open source automation platform that enables automation for provisioning, configuration management and infrastructure deployment across cloud, virtual and on-premises environments.
Salt by Saltstack contains a robust and flexible configuration management framework, which is built on the remote execution core. This framework executes on the minions, allowing effortless, simultaneous configuration of tens of thousands of hosts, by rendering language specific state files. Unlike Ansible, Salt is agentless, relying instead on secure shell (SSH) connections to complete tasks. For a security architect, Salt is a gem!
Collaboration and Issue Management Tools
Jira is implemented by teams for software collaboration, defect tracking and work management. The tool offers customizable features like an intuitive dashboard, optimized workflows, efficient search, filtering and defect management. Jira is purpose-built to support various use cases of project management, such as capturing requirements, test case management and tracking tasks in real time.
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer support platform that enables an organization to engage with its client through different collaboration channels, including phone, email, chat and social media. Zendesk provides one easy-to-use platform for cross-functional collaboration and customer communications, thereby helping organizations to better manage customer queries and respond quickly.
Security
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is an open source policy engine that supports a high-level declarative language that lets developers specify Policy as Code. The platform is built to impose granular-level policies on different components, including CI/CD pipelines, microservices, Kubernetes clusters, etc.
Kubewarden is an open source policy engine simplifying the adoption of policy-as-code. It does not require any domain specific knowledge or new language constructs and can take existing policies, compile into WebAssembly and deploy into existing pipelines using existing processes.
Kube-bench is an open source tool used to run the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark test on Kubernetes clusters. This ensures that the Kubernetes cluster is secure and deployed according to the security recommendations in the benchmark document.
SUSE NeuVector is a fully open source end to end cloud native security platform to implement zero-trust security in containerized environments. With full support for Openshift, Kubernetes, and simple containerized workloads, SUSE NeuVector allows for complete visibility into your cloud-native network and will prevent any communication not explicitly required for an application or workload to function.
Monitoring Tools
Foresight is an observability product for CI pipelines and tests that enable secure, real-time monitoring of CI/CD pipelines. In addition to tracking metrics, traces and logs, the platform offers live debugging capabilities to facilitate quicker resolution of failures.
Prometheus/Grafana are open source, event-monitoring tools that implement a high-dimensional data model and store metrics along with timestamps in a time-series database. Prometheus ships with a flexible query language and is one of the most popular alerting systems for complex Kubernetes clusters. Based on metrics generated by Prometheus, Grafana offers built-in visualization support for efficient querying and analysis.
Summary
Delivering high-quality software at speed is not easy to sustain and scale. If you develop modern applications today, CI/CD sits at the heart of your software development process because it offers agility, reduces risks of production recessions and ensures quality. It is often considered critical to build an effective CI/CD pipeline for rapid workflow execution. Doing so requires diligent technical analysis, a generous amount of planning and choosing the right set of tools.
As an SRE or platform engineer, you’re likely constantly looking for ways to streamline your workflow and make your day-to-day tasks more efficient. One of the best ways to do this is by utilizing popular SRE or DevOps tools. In this post, we’ll take a look at 7 of the most popular tools that are widely used in the industry today and explain their value in terms of how they can help make you more efficient in your day-to-day tasks.
Prometheus: Prometheus is a popular open-source monitoring and alerting system that is widely used for monitoring distributed systems. It allows you to collect metrics from your services and set up alerts based on those metrics. Prometheus is known for its simple data model, easy-to-use query language, and powerful alerting capabilities. With Prometheus, you can quickly and easily identify issues within your systems and be alerted to them before they become a problem.
Grafana: Grafana is a popular open-source visualization tool that can be used to create interactive dashboards and charts based on the metrics collected by Prometheus. It allows you to easily view the health of your systems, identify trends, and spot outliers. With Grafana, you can quickly and easily identify patterns and trends within your data, which can help you optimize your systems and improve their performance.
Kubernetes: Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system that allows you to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It helps you to define, deploy, and manage your application at scale, and to ensure high availability and fault tolerance. With Kubernetes, you can automate many routine tasks associated with deploying and managing your applications, which frees up more time for you to focus on other important tasks.
Ansible: Ansible is an open-source automation tool that can be used to automate the provisioning, configuration, and deployment of your infrastructure. Ansible is known for its simple, human-readable syntax and its ability to easily manage and automate complex tasks. With Ansible, you can automate the provisioning and configuration of your infrastructure, which can help you save time and reduce the risk of errors.
Terraform: Terraform is a popular open-source tool for provisioning and managing infrastructure as code. It allows you to define your infrastructure as code and to use a simple, declarative language to provision and manage resources across multiple providers. With Terraform, you can automate the process of provisioning and managing your infrastructure, which can help you save time and reduce the risk of errors.
Jenkins: Jenkins is an open-source automation server that can be used to automate the building, testing, and deployment of your software. It provides a powerful plugin system that allows you to easily integrate with other tools, such as Git, Ansible, and Kubernetes. With Jenkins, you can automate many routine tasks associated with building, testing, and deploying your software, which frees up more time for you to focus on other important tasks.
GitLab: GitLab is a web-based Git repository manager that provides source code management (SCM), continuous integration, and more. It’s a full-featured platform that covers the entire software development life cycle and allows you to manage your code, collaborate with your team, and automate your pipeline. With GitLab, you can streamline your entire software development process, from code management to deployment, which can help you save time and reduce the risk of errors.
These are just a few examples of the many popular SRE and DevOps tools that are widely used in the industry today.
