Best free courses for Configuration Management

Best free courses for Configuration Management

Software and DevOps engineers may only sometimes know the different management tools and approaches they can adopt to solve a problem. 

Information technology is a vast subject, and nobody can know it all. But, with the growth of online certification courses, it is possible to learn about various management tools like configuration management systems that help IT professionals manage their systems better. 

In this article, we will find out what configuration management is, its benefits, and Devops Engineer Certification courses to learn configuration management tools to develop a solid foundation of knowledge to competently practice project management.

What is Configuration Management?

CM is the process of managing systems consistency throughout the product lifecycle. In IT, configuration management mainly concentrates on servers, software, and hardware that tracks and monitors changes to ensure that an organization knows how the servers are configured to maintain a robust and solid system. 

The CM is implemented with the help of configuration management tools like CHEF, Ansible, JUJU, Saltrack, etc. A configuration management free course will help DevOps engineers quickly understand the operating systems and develop solutions in emergencies. 

It is possible to oversee infrastructure rollouts from start to finish using configuration management, from planning and design through testing and release to continuous maintenance. By centralizing your system’s settings, a CMS ensures you always have access to the most accurate information. You may then use the VCS to keep track of the various configurations you’ve made.

Why is Configuration Management important?

The configuration management system is crucial for organizations as it prevents undocumented system changes. Secondly, CM will help fix potential threats, performance issues, and inconsistencies in the system that can lead to penalties and fines. 

Before it becomes a serious problem, organizations need to adopt and hire professionals with CMS expertise. In the long run, system unavailability, instability, or failure might result from these changes not being correctly recorded.

IT departments can lose track of which systems need maintenance, what steps to take to fix problems, which tasks to prioritize, whether their changes have been validated and propagated and whether they need more adequate software configuration management documentation.

With the help of a configuration management system, a business may describe settings in a standardized fashion, then construct and maintain them under predetermined standards. Multiple instruments are required for a comprehensive configuration management strategy, including those that:

  • Automatically update and patch all impacted devices by broadcasting changes to them all at once.
  • Identify setups that need to perform or compliant.
  • Remedy tasks may be prioritized automatically.
  • Take corrective action as required.

The need for a consistent configuration management process is heightened when organizations start using a microservices architecture consisting of many code segments of varying sizes connected by APIs. In this architecture, each service uses metadata to store information about resource allocation, secrets like passwords, and endpoints that define connections to other services during registration and initialization.

Benefits of Configuration Management system:

As we know how important it is for companies to adopt CMS, let us see its benefits to organizations:

  1. CMS enables organizations to follow compliance standards. Having a CM mechanism to find, maintain, enforce, and audit a configuration across an organization’s infrastructure may aid in compliance efforts but does not prove compliance on its own.
  2. If a mistake occurs, CM can recreate the same conditions that led to it and duplicate an environment to simplify workloads’ scaling and migration, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
  3. IT environments or hardware and software can function more reliably and with less risk when services are reliably delivered. In addition, configuration management and IT service management (ITSM) help IT managers prevent illegal practices while enforcing legal ones. The objective is to guarantee the accessibility, dependability, and safety of all IT services.
  4. Configuration management mainly serves four main functions: service management, security, compliance, and systems security. 

Best free courses for Configuration Management

This section will discuss where IT professionals can learn about CMS for free and increase their knowledge base. 

1. Configuration Management and the Cloud- Coursera

This is a free course with a 7-day trial period. You can enroll for free and later decide if you want to continue with the certification course. It is a course for beginners made by Google to help professionals improve their skills that are in demand. 

This course will teach you how to use automation to control large groups of computers. To scale the infrastructure of the cloud, you can learn automation skills with the best practices to handle hundreds of servers and virtual machines and devise a plan in a crisis. 

2. Configuration Management- free short course- ITPA

It is an entirely free course to enroll in. The duration of the course is four weeks. This course is made with the help of the Information Technology Professionals Association (ITPA), an active trade group whose members are IT experts who want to move the field forward.

3. Configuration Management Resource Guide- CMPIC

The CM Resource Guide is a free digital library that CMPIC LLC gives to professionals. It is intended for configuration management experts in the private and public sectors. Please utilize the links mentioned on the website to access the free resources for configuration management, where you may read up on Configuration Management (CM), find relevant groups to join, and expand your knowledge of the topic.

4. Getting started with CHEF in DevOps- Simplilearn

This is a self-paced course with SkillUp, free of charge, to learn about the fundamental concepts of configuration management and tools. Professionals will be awarded the certification after completing the course. Here, in the 1-hour video course, you can explore tools in the automation process and learn how to manage and deploy systems. 

To conclude, configuration management is essential for businesses to predict how even minor changes will affect deployment, testing, and production activities. With CM, it is possible to track what role hardware plays in the system. CM relieves IT so they can concentrate on more valuable projects rather than responding to urgent issues and being productive in their work.