There’s been a lovely amount of blog posts, articles, tutorials, eBooks, and Youtube videos about all kinds of IT-related topics. These sources help you If you’re stuck with a programming-related issue. Or when you face trouble setting up your (cloud) infrastructure resources. Websites such as Stackoverflow provide valuable discussions between tech experts. It all helps to sharpen your professional skills. Sometimes these valuable sources also contain beautiful schemas which are worthwhile to print and keep for your reference. In this article, I collected 7 great schemas to hang behind your desk.
Acknowledgments
Following will be an overview of great schemas, mind-maps, diagrams, and other visuals that span topics such as Cloud architecture, Linux tools, DevOps-related aspects as well as security topics. Every section contains a link to the original source or its website on which you can find it. Every schema is owned by the respective owner or authoritative party. Therefore all credits go to them.
Periodic Table of DevOps Tools
Everyone that followed his/her high school chemistry lessons can tell you about the Periodic Table of elements. Now, the website of digital.ai provides a DevOps Tools Periodic Table. It’s a popular schema since it is based on 15.000+ votes and it covers more than 400 tools in 15+ categories. The DevOps Tools Periodic Table helps you to select the right tools for your DevOps pipeline. All of the tools are grouped in categories such as containers, release management, deployment, security, etc. Categories have a specific color and every element has its own number and abbreviation. Besides this, it also shows you the type of license you would need or not.
Use cases
Some of the use cases for which you can use this schema are:
- Tool selection. Add new tools to your tool-set or replace existing tools with new ones.
- Build your pipeline to map your desired stages with the tools to implement them. Useful for governance-related challenges as well.
- Get an overview of the distribution of licenses you use (commercial and open source) to review if they still match your strategic and financial goals.
- Find gaps in your existing toolchain by using the DevOps Diagram Generator.
I like this scheme since it’s simple and to the point but very complete as new versions also arrive regularly.
Gegos view on it
Besides the more “classic” view of the Periodic Table as indicated in the previous section, there is also a more extended list of DevOps-related Periodic Tables at the website of Geko.cloud.
This website grouped all of the elements and organized them into different categories. These categories follow the typical lifecycle of an application. Basically it acts as a checklist of all of the tools you might need in a specific stage. Great to see that this page is also updated regularly to reflect the current situation in the world of DevOps.
Linux Performance Observability Tools
Brendan Gregg blogs about sophisticated technical topics such as eBPF tools, resource monitoring, networking & tracing, and various Linux-related applications. One of his schemas not to miss is the Linux Perfonamce Observability Tools. The most recent version of the schema dates from 2021. It focuses on performance-based tools that all work under Linux. These include static performance analysis tools, bench-marking tools, tuning tools as well as observability tools.
The tools are clearly organized and grouped per tech level such as the Operating System level, hardware, and various others. Derived from that, they are divided into subcategories such as:
- Application-related tools and system libraries to trace running applications and find process-related information.
- CPU and memory-related tools to observe the current usage of CPUs and memory.
- Network-specific tools to check open Sockets, Net Device information and IP routes, etc.
- Data and database-related tools like File Systems, Volume Managers, and existing mount points.
- And last but not least: device drivers that operate on a low level. Think of I/O & Network controllers.
It’s an excellent schema since the coloring and grouping are very clear. Besides this, the schema is copied a number of times. So this one definitively deserves a place here.
Business Architecture
Before companies decide on their technical solutions, it’s vital to have a common understanding of their business architecture. Since business-related activities play an important role at the enterprise level, this should not be forgotten.
Denny Zhang included a clear business architecture diagram on his website. This diagram shows two main aspects: the business intent as well as the business design. Both reside in the enterprise section of the diagram. The intent faces the forces of external influences such as competitive pressure and opportunities as well as business trends. These are the main drivers for the mission, vision, and strategic goals and act as the primary source for the business model.
From here, he depicts the business design with Governance related topics (such as architecture, IT governance, and internal policies and procedures). Various operating models such as replication and coordination have an effect on the business model. Down below you’ll find the business processes, the people who execute it as well as the business capabilities. The technologies are at the bottom.
Cloud service models map
Packtpub is a website that offers e-books that all include snippets of actual source code and supporting videos. For many books, you can read free samples to search and select the right book of your choice. In the book titled “The Azure Cloud Native Architecture Mapbook” Stephane Eyskens included nice Cloud service models & use cases diagram. It’s a particularly interesting diagram for non-hardcore IT personnel.
The diagram depicts various cloud service models such as raw infrastructure (DMZ, Geographic zones), containers (Cloud agnosticism, time to market) as well as databases (Service Management Delegation). It also includes platforms that benefit from cost optimization and serverless technologies (elasticity, limitless capacity). Besides these focus areas, the cost models have been presented for them as well as the efforts of the OPS teams to handle these.
One of the main reasons I like this diagram is that it shows the main “landing zones” of the different deployment options. This schema makes it more clear to business representatives as well as managers seeking the right target state for the applications included in their application portfolios.
AWS and Azure Platforms
It would be no surprise that there are a lot of great schemes for the most popular Cloud providers. Let’s explore AWS and Azure here.
The AWS platform
Books such as Cloud Native Architectures are a “must have” for every architect that wants to land an application on the public cloud. There are a lot of books that dive into this topic of interest. In the book, you’ll find a thorough overview of the AWS platform to date. The scheme clearly separates topics such as the marketplace, Dev(Ops) tools, AI, and IoT.
Besides, it shows the typical layers of an architecture model to map the AWS services. A couple of these layers are infrastructure, compute, databases, and application services. On top of this will find the services related to hybrid technologies and migration.
It’s a great picture to view the popular services grouped together in their respective domains which also include security-related topics. By using this scheme you don’t have to dig through the entire list of services that you’ll encounter when you open up the AWS console in a web browser. This can be very overwhelming.
Azure Heatmap
Before it went offline, the website of azurecharts.com offered a lot of great Azure-related schemes. The most famous one was the Azure Heatmap. This colorful scheme updates itself automatically based on actual updates on the side of Azure itself. Think of stats, news, RSS channels, public updates, and other Azure-related changes such as SLAs. Since it’s an interactive schema, the information won’t get outdated as other schemas need to be updated regularly.
Besides the more serious topics, it also includes a quiz to test your knowledge about different Azure-related services. Check out the website of techgenix.com to get an overview.
Wrap up
Many people which work in the software development industry have created a set of very nice schemes, diagrams, flowcharts, and other visuals to share their knowledge about different IT-related topics. It’s great that these people share it with the entire world. Their effort helps to keep an eye on the latest DevOps tools, Linux performance, and observability-related tools as well as on the most common Cloud services. Print those schemes and hang them behind your desk as a gentle reminder for yourself. Or use them to keep lengthy discussions with your peers limited to align the different opinions.
If you have questions related to this topic, feel free to book a meeting with one of our solutions experts, mail to sales@amazic.com.
