As the demand for DevOps professionals continues to rise, one common question among aspiring engineers is: “Which tools will I learn in a DevOps training program?” The answer to this is essential because DevOps isn’t just a theoretical concept—it’s a tool-driven practice that relies heavily on automation, integration, testing, and monitoring.
DevOps tools are the backbone of its implementation. They automate manual tasks, bridge gaps between development and operations, and make the software lifecycle faster, more efficient, and error-free.
In a comprehensive DevOps training course, you’ll typically get hands-on experience with a wide variety of industry-standard tools, each playing a specific role in the DevOps pipeline—from code creation to build, test, deploy, monitor, and scale.
Below are 8 essential categories of DevOps tools you’ll commonly learn in a structured DevOps training, along with the most widely-used tools in each category.
1. Version Control System – Git & GitHub/GitLab
Every DevOps journey begins with version control, which allows teams to collaborate on code efficiently.
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in code, manages branching and merging, and allows multiple developers to work on the same project without conflicts.
GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket are web-based platforms that host Git repositories and provide features like pull requests, issues, CI/CD pipelines, and code review systems.
You’ll learn how to:
Create and manage repositories
Use branches and merges
Collaborate with other developers
Integrate Git with CI/CD tools
2. Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment – Jenkins
Jenkins is one of the most popular CI/CD tools in DevOps.
It automates the building, testing, and deployment of applications so that developers can focus on coding. Jenkins integrates with hundreds of plugins, making it easy to connect with virtually any tool in the DevOps toolchain.
In training, you’ll learn how to:
Set up Jenkins pipelines
Automate testing
Trigger builds from Git commits
Deploy code to servers automatically
Alternatives: GitLab CI, CircleCI, Travis CI, Azure DevOps Pipelines
3. Configuration Management – Ansible
Configuration management tools help you automate the setup and maintenance of servers and environments.
Ansible, a popular choice due to its simplicity and agentless architecture, allows you to automate:
Server provisioning
Application deployment
Configuration updates across multiple servers
You’ll practice writing playbooks (automation scripts) and managing environments using Ansible in a production-like setup.
Other tools: Puppet, Chef, SaltStack
4. Containerization – Docker
Docker is a foundational tool in DevOps that allows developers to package applications and dependencies into portable containers.
Why containers? They ensure that software runs the same way in all environments—from development to testing to production.
In DevOps training, you’ll learn how to:
Build and run Docker containers
Create Dockerfiles
Use Docker Compose for multi-container applications
Push images to Docker Hub
Docker simplifies deployment, scales easily, and works seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines.
5. Container Orchestration – Kubernetes
As you scale applications, managing hundreds of containers manually becomes impractical. That’s where Kubernetes (or K8s) comes in.
Kubernetes automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
Key concepts you’ll explore:
Pods, deployments, services
Cluster architecture
Auto-scaling
Rolling updates and rollback
Helm charts for packaging applications
It’s a must-learn tool for DevOps engineers working with microservices and cloud-native architectures.
6. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) – Terraform
Terraform, by HashiCorp, allows you to manage infrastructure using code rather than manual provisioning.
With Terraform, you can define cloud infrastructure (like AWS EC2 instances, load balancers, databases, etc.) in readable configuration files and provision them automatically.
In your training, you’ll learn to:
Write Terraform configuration files
Use variables and modules
Apply and destroy infrastructure
Integrate with cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP
This approach ensures repeatability, consistency, and scalability in managing infrastructure.
7. Monitoring and Logging – Prometheus & Grafana
Once your applications are deployed, it’s crucial to monitor their health and performance.
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring tool designed for time-series data. It collects metrics and helps identify issues like latency, downtime, or memory leaks.
Grafana works with Prometheus to create beautiful dashboards that visualize metrics and performance in real-time.
You’ll learn how to:
Set up monitoring for containers and applications
Create alert rules for critical incidents
Build dashboards to track application health and usage
Other tools: ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana), Nagios, Datadog
8. Cloud Platforms – AWS / Azure / GCP
Most modern applications are hosted in the cloud, so a good DevOps training program includes working with major cloud providers.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the most widely used cloud platform, offering services like EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, and more.
Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are also gaining popularity for enterprise and machine learning projects.
You’ll learn:
How to create cloud servers
Automate infrastructure with Terraform or Ansible
Host containers on cloud Kubernetes services (like EKS, AKS, GKE)
Set up CI/CD pipelines using cloud-native tools
Understanding cloud services is essential for deploying and scaling applications in real-world environments.
Conclusion
DevOps isn’t just about a single tool—it’s about mastering a set of integrated tools that automate the entire software development and operations pipeline. Each tool has a distinct role, and when used together, they create a powerful ecosystem that speeds up delivery, improves quality, and increases collaboration.
By the end of a full DevOps training program, you’ll be proficient in:
Version control (Git, GitHub)
CI/CD automation (Jenkins)
Server configuration (Ansible)
Containerization (Docker)
Orchestration (Kubernetes)
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Monitoring and logging (Prometheus, Grafana)
Cloud computing (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
These tools are highly in-demand and form the foundation of most DevOps job roles today.
Whether you’re aiming to become a DevOps Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, or simply want to add DevOps skills to your developer toolkit, mastering these tools will accelerate your career and make you job-ready in the modern tech industry.