Most roadmaps tend to focus on tools and technologies such as:
Containerization: Docker, Helm, Kubernetes
CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab
Programming: Go, Python
Cloud Platforms: AWS, Azure, GCP
Version Control: Git
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Terraform
Configuration Management (CM): Ansible
But there is a foundational step that always seems to get missed. I call it the 'DevOps Day 0' Roadmap, which will cover the absolute pre-requisites, including:
Networking
TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS
VPN, Load Balancers, Firewalls
Network Protocols, Subnetting
Databases
SQL vs. NoSQL
ACID properties, Scalability
Data Modeling
Security
Encryption, Authentication, Authorization
OWASP Top 10, Security Policies
Risk Assessment, Compliance Standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA)
Storage
Block Storage, Object Storage, File Storage
NAS, SAN, SSD vs. HDD
Disaster Recovery (DR)
Backup and Restore Strategies
Pilot Light, Warm Standby, Multi-site
RTO (Recovery Time Objective), RPO (Recovery Point Objective)
Data Replication
Master-Slave, Peer-to-Peer
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Replication
Consistency, Replication Topologies, Log Shipping
Caching
In-memory Caches (Redis, Memcached), CDN
Cache Invalidation, Write-through vs. Write-back
Cache Hit Ratio
DevOps is not about building; it's 20% building, and 80% optimizing and operating.
