I came across a problem-first SRE bootcamp (where you get to build an application, and scale it from localhost to production) by One2N on X (formerly Twitter) and thought, “Heck yeah! I’ll give this a try.” This blog post kicks off a journey where I’ll document my experience tackling each exercise in the bootcamp.

This introductory post will link to other entries detailing my solutions to the different exercises and stages. I chose this bootcamp for its problem-first approach. It provides just enough guidance to set you in the right direction, but everything else? That’s up to you to research, experiment, and figure out on your own. This is NOT a cohort-based bootcamp, rather, it is a self-paced one.

The Learning Journey

This bootcamp is divided into two main parts/responsibilities:

• Getting your application/service from local to production.

• Managing the application/service in production.

Each part includes milestones with clear goals, learning outcomes, problem statements, expectations, and recommended resources. The second part is still a WIP, so it is unavailable for now.

Responsibilities

1. Create a simple REST API Webserver
2. Containerise REST API
3. Setup one-click local development setup
4. Setup a CI pipeline
5. Deploy REST API & its dependent services on bare metal
6. Setup Kubernetes cluster
7. Deploy REST API & its dependent services in K8s
8. Deploy REST API & its dependent services using Helm Charts
9. Setup one-click deployments using Argo CD
10. Setup an observability stack
11. Configure dashboards & alerts

Linking Plan for Future Articles

I’ll update this article with links to each stage or milestone article as I make progress, along with the relevant GitHub links. I’ll also share the challenges I encounter and how I overcome them along the way.