Keeping up with DevOps innovations with KataCoda

Katacoda – a quick, efficient and fun way to learn the basics of new software or technologies.

As a DevOps engineer you need to keep up with all the new innovations. Some you want to start using, for others you just want to know which use case it is solving. You read blogs, subscribe to the Technology Radar and you keep a list of tools and techniques you want to investigate in your spare time or on Friday afternoons. But clearly, there are more tools than you have time for and you need to be critical and make priorities.

Built-in terminal

While I was looking at a new software project, I noticed they had some hands-on examples based on a built-in terminal running on their website. It offered a great and simple way to get started with the software.

The built-in terminal was powered by Katacoda, which appeared to be some sort of laboratory where you can do all kinds of small basic “experiments” with the latest DevOps innovations. All environments are prepared and it is reading and doing, hence it offers a quick, efficient and fun way to learn the basics of new software or technologies.

In a single hour I was able to:

• get a feeling on two load balancing solutions for containers and decided I want to explore Traefik further
• finally get a taste of Prometheus
• do the scenario What is a container, which shows a bit of the Linux fundamentals on which Docker is build.

Well, that was a very valuable hour! As you see I use phrases like “get a feeling”, “taste” and “shows a bit”. Don’t expect to get deep knowledge here, but use Katacoda as a efficient way to filter and prioritise technologies you want to spend more time on next.

An example of Katacoda’s embedded terminal, accessible in-browser.

Try it yourself!

That’s why it got me enthusiastic and I’m really looking forward to explore more content on Katacoda.