• by Admin

In this blog post, I'll talk about why Python is essential for DevOps and how it can be used in the real world. Also, I've added the tools and plan for a DevOps engineer to learn Python.

DevOps engineers should know how to code more and more. It doesn't mean that DevOps engineers must build full applications like developers. For DevOps engineers, development is not the same as it is for other people.

In my guide for DevOps engineers, I wrote how important it is for them to know how to programme and write scripts.

Python For DevOps

 

When it comes to automating tasks in DevOps, Python is the best programming language to use.

JetBrains' most recent Python Developers Survey found that 38% of Python is used for DevOps, Automation, and System Administration.

Now, let's look at the different ways that Python can be used in DevOps.

1. CI/CD, Infrastructure provisioning & Configuration Management

Many open-source tools are available for infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, continuous integration, and deployment. But there are times when the built-in features of the tooling are not enough to do what needs to be done. This is where programming languages like Python come in. For example

• When deploying, calling an API to get a secret token.
• Reading a CSV file to get certain data when deploying an application.
• Using Python, you can make your own modules for Ansible if there isn't a module for the implementation you want.

 

2. DevOps Platform Tooling

As part of platform engineering, major DevOps platform teams build the internal platform and tools for internal teams in most companies. When creating these platforms, DevOps engineers need to use programming languages and scripting languages to make utilities and scripts for platform automation.

 

3. Cloud Automation

Boto3 is an excellent example of how Python can be used to automate tasks in the cloud. It is a Python module used extensively for scripts and automation related to the AWS cloud. You might also need to write Python lambda functions for infrastructure-related tasks as a DevOps engineer.

 

4. Monitoring & Alerting

Even though every company has monitoring tools, there are times when you need a custom monitoring and alerting solution. In this case, you can use Python SDKs or custom modules to make the solution work.

For example, a custom autoscaler based on alerts, in which a webhook listens for alerts and decides how to scale based on what it hears, is one example. With a simple Python Flask app, you can automate the whole autoscaling process.

 

5. MLOPS

MLOPS is another area where Python is used a lot (Machine Learning Operations). Most workflows for DevOps engineers who work with teams that build ML applications need Python. For example, the Airflow tool is a standard ML and data engineering pipeline tool. Most of the time, these pipelines are made by DevOps engineers in collaboration with ML and Data engineers. But some complicated use cases need the help of data engineers.

 

Python Learning Roadmap For DevOps Engineers

 

If you are new to DevOps engineering and want to learn Python, you might be wondering how much Python you need to know for DevOps.

Here are some resources for DevOps Engineers to use as they learn Python.

• Python environment setup
• Basic syntax
• Variables
• Python Data Types
• Conditionals
• Loops
• Regular expressions.
• Methods
• Modules
• Exception handling
• Utilizing Python cloud SDKs (Boto3)

Once you understand the above ideas, you can start using real-world use cases from the next section to learn how to script in Python.

If you want a step-by-step way to start from scratch and learn Python, You can talk to our subject matter experts at 905-629-3000

 

Essential Python Modules for DevOps Automation

 

There are a lot of Python modules that can be used for different things. But when it comes to DevOps, you will have to use python devops libraries over and over again to automate tasks.

Here is the list.

 

• os module
• platform
• subprocess
• sys
• psutil
• re (Regular Expression)
• scapy
• Requests and urllib3
• logging
• getpass
• boto3
• paramiko
• JSON
• PyYAML
• pandas: One of the best data science frameworks. However, it is very useful for DevOps automation tasks dealing with CSV files.
• smtplib

 

Real-World Python Automation Use Cases For DevOps

 

Now, let's look at some of the ways that Python scripting is used in DevOps in the real world. I put the use cases into several different groups.

Generic Python DevOps Use Cases

 

• Python Script to query databases
• Python script to execute a shell script and shell commands.
• Querying Splunk logs for specific alerting
• Python script to create Kafka Topics
• Python script to take backups.
• Python script for Kubernetes init containers code to fetch secrets from the vault.
• Python script to fetch IPs of live servers in an autoscaling group.
• Python AWS Lambda function to stop running instances on weekends.
• Python script for ETL jobs.
• Find SSL expiry date using python
• Develop custom CLI applications using Python
• CRUD operations using Python for databases.
• Custom scripts while using configuration management tools.

 

Cloud-Specific Python Use Cases

As part of Infrastructure as code, you might need custom automation scripts when working in a cloud environment. Let's look at some real-world ways that Python is used in the cloud.

• Provision AWS resources using python AWS CDK.
• Use Boto3 modules to manage AWS services.
• Python Boto3 program to manage AWS ec2 instances.
• Python Boto3 program to manage AWS S3 Storage.

 

Python For DevOps GitHub Repo

 

I made a GitHub repository where Python scripts and programmes related to DevOps will be added for people to learn from and use. The repo is mostly about general Python scripts, Boto3, Python scripts related to the OS, and more. It is an open-source repository that will take contributions from the public.

 

Repo: Python for Scripts

Or you can clone the repo.

git clone https://github.com/techiescamp/python-for-devops

How Important is Python for DevOps Engineers?

 

Coding for DevOps engineers is a very controversial subject. But as a DevOps engineer, I've had to use Python for DevOps a lot for things like automation, continuous integration/deployment/delivery (CI/CD), and custom auto-scaling solutions.

Also, Python is a very important part of DevOps engineer interviews. Most of the first interviews for DevOps involve live coding. So, you'll have to solve programming problems that have to do with devops. If you know Python well, these interviews will be easy for you to pass.

 

Python Automation Case Studies

 

If you want to learn how Python is used in real-world projects, you should read case studies that companies have put out. Here are some case studies that will help you learn more about how to use Python for automation.

 

1- How Netflix Uses Python

 

2- How Facebook Engineering Uses Python

 

Python For DevOps FAQs

 

Is Python useful for DevOps?

Python is considered one of the most useful languages for automating DevOps processes. Python is used by DevOps teams to automate repetitive tasks, set up infrastructure, and do API-driven deployments. CI/CD workflows, among other things

Should I learn Go or Python for DevOps?

Programming languages like Golang and Python are used a lot in DevOps. The choice of language depends on how it will be used. Python is easy to learn and supports automation and system administration tasks. It can also be used with other devops tools to build complex workflows and pipelines. Golang makes distributed systems run faster and has more advanced features. Golang is used to create tools like Kubernetes and Terraform and can also be used to add to these tools.

 

Conclusion

 

DevOps Engineers need to know more and more about programming and scripting. Python is also one of the best ways to write code for DevOps.

Also, when it comes to DevOps tools, you will use a programming or scripting language to make custom implementations.

Even if scripting isn't a big part of your day-to-day work as a devops engineer, you should still learn Python and make open-source utilities and scripts. It will help you in the long run for sure.

 

Have any questions about this article? Feel free to ask our Subject Matter Expert at 905-629-3000

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