Abel is an accomplished technologist with several years of experience in the DevOps space. He has been the DevOps lead for many high-growth firms such as Xendit, Cake Group, and Foodpanda.
Today, we are going learn about DevOps and Cloud from him. We will also talk about his background and try to understand what made him the tech guru that he is!
Abel's background
You've been to many parts of the world like China and Africa and are now in Singapore. Could you talk to us about your background? What got you interested in technology and what keeps you interested in tech?
The 101s
Let us start off with architecture. Perhaps we can start with the basics.
Could you tell us what architecture is and how it has evolved? We have heard of two-tier and three-tier in the past. What are they? As far as applications go, there are other architecture terminologies that are being used these days. For example, microservices architecture and monolithic architecture. Could you please tell us what they are? Also, what would be a real-world example of this?
DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineer, DevSecOps and PaaS
Moving onto some 101 about DevOps, could you please define what that is? What did tech people do before DevOps was in practice? What makes someone a good DevOps practitioner? Is there a difference between Application and Infrastructure DevOps?We also hear the term SRE being used interchangeably with DevOps. What is the difference between the two? What about DevSecOps and PaaS? What are they?
Cloud 101
Moving onto the basics of the Cloud, the basic premise is that the infrastructure that was on the premises in a company can now be shared through combined computing power in a data center which is called the Cloud. Is that description somewhat accurate? There are so many Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and so on. What are the differences between them? Other than pricing does the Cloud matter much to a developer? We hear about terms like Kubernetes, Containers, and so on. What are they?
Leading people
You have also lead a large number of people and we have some questions relating to this. The first one is which one do you find more enjoyable? The leading people bit or the tech bit? How should a hardcore techie learn to people manage? What are some of the challenges you have encountered with this? At some point, the general perception is that if you do not manage people, your career tends to stagnate. How much truth is there to this?
Trends in the industry
How will DevOps evolve in the future? Is AI/Predictive Analytics really going to disrupt industries in the future or is it more hyped?
Advice to budding technologists
What sort of advice would you give to budding technologies these days? Is a degree as important as it once was? Or, can one self learn the most pressing topics which universities don’t exactly teach? Would you have any other comments or anything else you want to share?