SysOps Training — System Administration Modernization, Linux & Cloud Operations

Who Should Attend

This program is for system administrators, junior DevOps engineers, and IT operations professionals who manage Linux and Windows servers. If you’re provisioning servers manually, applying patches one server at a time, hardening systems inconsistently, or unsure if your backups actually work — this course teaches modern system administration with automation, Infrastructure as Code, and operational discipline.

Learning Outcomes

• Provision servers in minutes using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform + Ansible)
• Implement automated patching for Linux and Windows with compliance reporting
• Apply CIS benchmark-aligned hardening automatically and validate continuously
• Configure automated backups with verification and DR testing
• Build system monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana for proactive operations
• Troubleshoot and optimize Linux and Windows performance

Course Modules

1. Modern System Administration — From manual to automated. Infrastructure as Code for servers. Immutable infrastructure.
2. Linux Administration Deep Dive — Systemd, users/groups, permissions, networking, storage (LVM), package management.
3. Windows Server Administration — Core administration. PowerShell automation. Services. Event logs. Performance Monitor.
4. Infrastructure as Code for Servers — Terraform for VM provisioning. Ansible for configuration. Packer for golden images.
5. Automated Patching — Linux (yum, apt, dnf) and Windows (WSUS). Orchestration with Ansible. Testing. Rollback. Compliance.
6. System Hardening — CIS benchmarks. OpenSCAP, InSpec, Lynis. Automated hardening. Continuous compliance. Drift detection.
7. Backup & DR — Backup strategies (full, incremental, differential). Automation. Verification. DR testing. RTO/RPO.
8. System Monitoring — Prometheus node_exporter. Windows exporter. Grafana dashboards. Proactive alerting.
9. Performance Tuning — CPU, memory, disk, network profiling. Bottleneck identification. Tuning recommendations. Capacity planning.
10. Capstone: Modern SysOps — Provision, harden, patch, monitor, and back up a fleet of Linux and Windows servers.

Hands-on Labs (20 total)

Labs include: “Provision 10 Linux servers with Terraform and configure them with Ansible,” “Apply CIS benchmark hardening and validate with OpenSCAP,” “Configure automated patching for Linux and Windows with Ansible and compliance reporting,” “Set up Prometheus node_exporter monitoring with Grafana dashboards for 50 servers.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Aren’t SysOps skills obsolete with cloud and DevOps? No. Cloud runs on Linux. Containers run on Linux. Kubernetes nodes are Linux servers. System administration fundamentals — provisioning, hardening, patching, monitoring, backup — are still critical. This course modernizes those skills with automation and IaC. You’ll learn to manage servers at scale, not one at a time.

Linux or Windows — which gets more coverage? Both. Core modules cover Linux and Windows. Labs are available for both. The principles — IaC, automated patching, hardening, monitoring — apply to both operating systems. You choose your primary OS for lab work.