Q1 Recap: Building the DevOps Foundation

We made it through Q1. If you’ve been following along since August, you’ve gone from “what is Infrastructure as Code?” to deploying Azure resources with Terraform. That’s real progress.

This post is a chance to step back, review what we’ve learned, and make sure the foundation is solid before we build on it in Q2.

What We Covered

August: Getting Started

Welcome to Pipelines and Pizza
The DevOps Career Path
Terraform vs. PowerShell vs. Ansible
Git Basics
Cloud Strategy
Favorite Tools for DevOps
Git Branching Strategies

September - October: Automation Fundamentals

Ansible for Beginners
Ansible Patching
Infrastructure as Code
Managing Nutanix with Terraform

November - December: Terraform & Azure

Terraform Basics
Terraform Variables and Outputs
Azure for DevOps Engineers
Connecting Terraform to Azure

The Skills You’ve Built

Git & Version Control

Cloning, branching, committing, and merging
Understanding trunk-based development vs. feature branches
Writing meaningful commit messages

Ansible

Writing basic playbooks with tasks and handlers
Using variables, templates, and inventory files
Understanding idempotency

Terraform Fundamentals

Writing HCL with resources, variables, and outputs
Understanding providers and state management
Using terraform init, plan, apply, and destroy

Azure Basics

Understanding the hierarchy: Tenant → Management Groups → Subscriptions → Resource Groups
Knowing the core services
Connecting Terraform to Azure with service principals

Key Takeaways

1. Declarative > Imperative (Usually)

Terraform’s declarative approach beats step-by-step scripting for infrastructure.

2. State is Everything in Terraform

terraform {
  backend "azurerm" {
    resource_group_name  = "rg-terraform-state"
    storage_account_name = "stterraformstate001"
    container_name       = "tfstate"
    key                  = "prod/terraform.tfstate"
  }
}

3. Variables Make Code Reusable

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "main" {
  name     = "rg-${var.app_name}-${var.environment}-${var.location}"
  location = var.location
  tags     = local.common_tags
}

4. The Cloud Adoption Framework is Your Friend

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Microsoft’s CAF provides proven patterns.

5. Git is Non-Negotiable

Every piece of infrastructure code belongs in version control.

Looking Ahead to Q2

Q2 is Automation & IaC Mastery:

January

Advanced Git
Ansible Vault
Terraform Modules
Deploying Azure Resources

February

Nutanix for DevOps Engineers
Automating Nutanix with Ansible
CI/CD for Infrastructure
Terraform in CI/CD Pipelines

March

Ansible in CI/CD Pipelines
Testing Infrastructure Code
Full Pipeline Integration
Q2 Recap

Resources to Keep Handy

Final Thoughts

Q1 was about building the foundation. You now have:

Version control skills to manage code properly
Ansible knowledge to automate configuration
Terraform fundamentals to define infrastructure as code
Azure understanding to work with a major cloud platform

Take a moment to appreciate how far you’ve come. Then get ready, because Q2 is where things get really interesting.

See you in January.

Happy holidays, and happy automating!