The Evolution of DevOps

Ten years ago, “DevOps” meant a developer who knew how to restart Apache on a Linux server. Today, it has evolved into a sophisticated discipline centered around Platform Engineering.

The goal is no longer just “automating scripts”; it is about building a product (the platform) for your internal customers (the developers).

The 3 Phases of DevOps

Phase 1: The “SysAdmin” Era

  • Tools: Bash scripts, SSH, cron jobs.
  • Workflow: Ticket-based. “Please open port 80.” “Ticket resolved.”
  • Problem: Slow, manual, prone to human error.

Phase 2: The “You Build It, You Run It” Era

  • Tools: Docker, Jenkins, early AWS.
  • Workflow: Developers write their own Dockerfiles and manage their own EC2 instances.
  • Problem: Cognitive load. Developers started spending 40% of their time fighting YAML files instead of shipping features.

Phase 3: Platform Engineering (2026 & Beyond)

  • Tools: Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Backstage, Terraform.
  • Workflow: Self-Service. Developers click a button or commit a config, and the Platform handles the rest.
  • Goal: “Golden Paths” — the easiest way to do something is also the right way.

Core Pillars of a Modern Platform

A robust Internal Developer Platform (IDP) stands on four pillars:

1. Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

We don’t click buttons in the AWS console. Everything is code.

  • Terraform/OpenTofu: Defines the cloud resources (VPCs, RDS, S3).
  • Ansible: Configures the OS (if you still maintain VMs).

2. GitOps (Continuous Delivery)

The state of your cluster is defined in Git.

  • ArgoCD / Flux: If the repo says “replicas: 3” and the cluster has 2, the agent fixes it automatically.
  • Benefit: Instant rollback (just git revert) and disaster recovery.

3. Observability, Not Just Monitoring

  • Monitoring: “Is the server up?”
  • Observability: “Why is the checkout latency spiking P99 for users in Japan?”
  • Stack: Prometheus (metrics), Loki (logs), Tempo (traces), Grafana (visualization).

4. Ephemeral Environments

Feature branches should automatically spin up a full replica of production (pr-123.myapp.com). This allows product managers and QA to test before merging.

Where to Start?

If you are new to this track, don’t try to learn everything at once. We will structure this series as follows:

  1. Linux & Networking: The primitives (namespaces, cgroups, TCP/IP).
  2. Containers: Docker internals.
  3. Orchestration: Kubernetes Architecture.
  4. Pipelines: GitHub Actions & ArgoCD.
  5. Observability: Instrumenting an app with OpenTelemetry.

“A good platform is like a paved road. You can drive off-road if you want, but the paved road gets you there faster and safer.”