One question I get a lot of on Big Data Big Questions is “Thomas what are you learning”. Honestly not as much as a Is should. It’s true I believe the key to being successful in any part of life is to continually learn.

Looking to change careers from Web Developer to DevOps?

Do you want to be a better partner or spouse?

Trouble with public speaking?

All the answer to the above questions start with learn and end with consistency. If you make it a habit to learn and are consistent with it there isn’t anything you can’t accomplish. Alright enough with selling you on learning! I wanted to share with you what I’m learning and to help motivate myself TO KEEP LEARNING. The way I plan to accomplish this is with monthly learning reports. 

30 Minutes of Learning Everydayish…

For along time I’ve advocated for the idea of taking 30 minutes everyday to learn something new. I’ll go through time periods where I’m hitting that everyday then sometimes where I fall behind. While it’s only a target and nothing to beat myself up about, I find it a useful technique when learning any concept. The way I do my 30 minutes of learning is to set a timer on my phone for 30 minutes and focus only on that topic for 30 minutes. Recently, in order to track this habit I’ve been using the Super Habit App. Below you can see how I’ve done over the last month. Honestly not my best work but let’s see how it improves overtime.

Pluralsight

Mainly my 30 Minutes of Learning comes from Pluralsight courses. Not only am I an Author but I’m also a student. Pluralsight has been a part of my personal learning path long before I was an Author. Back when I was a fresh new Web developer I used Pluralsight to learn C# and ASP.NET frameworks. Of course, I also dove into the world of JavaScript, JQuery, and other JS frameworks. Now days I still learn with Pluralsight but the content is more Data Engineering and IT OPs focused.

Docker Big Picture Course

Docker seems to be taking over the world. In fact, contributions and adoption of Docker and Kubernetes has outpaced Hadoop exponentially. So many new applications and services offer a containerized version. In the Hadoop 3.0 release multiple features were to add support for containers. All this container talk has pushed me to learn this amazing Platform-as-a-Services for OS virtualization. My guide on this journey is the great Nigel Poulton. Checkout my notes from the Docker Big Picture Course:

• Kubernetes originated out of Google (shocking I know)
• Kubernetes is Greek for helmsman or Captain
• Web Playground for K8s
• Web Playground for Docker
• Docker Engine – daemon –> containerd –> OCI
• Docker has both community and enterprise versions
• Kubernetes = K8s

Docker Deep Dive Course

After working my way through the Docker Big Picture Course I decided to stay in the Docker world by watching the Docker Deep Dive Course. I loved this course where I was able to get hands on with Docker and learn a good bit beyond the basics. Here are a few notes I jotted down throughout this course:

• Docker Commands like
  • List – docker ps
  • Pull Image – docker image pull
  • Build Image – docker image build
  • Run Image – docker exec
• Building Docker images is as easy as writing a YAML file
• YAML = Yet Another Markup Language
• Docker networking with bridge drive on Linux or NAT driver on Windows
• Stacks and Services – code –> container –> services
• Docker Universal Control Plane (UCP) is installed on top of Docker Engine
• Docker Trusted Registry can be setup for storing all Docker Images.

Data Related Podcast & Blogs

Data Engineer learning doesn’t only take place in courses. I also wanted to track some of the Podcast and articles I consumed throughout the month. The great thing about Podcast is you can listen to them while commuting, working out, house chores, or just about anywhere. Here are a few Podcast and Articles I’ve consumed over the past month.

• Conversational AI Best Practices with Cathy Pearl and Jessica Dene Earley-Cha – GCP podcast that digs into the aspects of conversational AI. I loved this podcast to explore where conversational AI is going and where to get started with NLP in GCP. Actually gave me some ideas for my October learning goals.
• Microservices.io – Uh I can’t even begin to summarize how much content is on this site. If you are looking to learn more around Microservices (which you should!!) then bookmark this site and read this content over time.
• Doctor AI – Dell Tech (full disclosure: #iworkforDell)  podcast diving into different topics around AI. In this episode host Jessica explores the possibilities of AI augmentation in the medical field. One the areas I’ve spent a good bit of research in and spoke about. Earlier this year I spoke with a group of Medical Doctors and Researchers at NYU around advances in AI.
• Exploring AWS Lake Formation – AWS podcast with guest from around the AWS world. A lot of great content on this on this podcast. Listened to this particularly episode while walking my son so my attention wasn’t what it should have been. Mostly I remember that Data Lake Formation is an AWS services that helps with cataloging and label data to support multiple services (MySQL, Redshift, S3).

On To Next Month

Thanks for supporting this new series and I’m excited to see how it matures over time. Also would love if I got more consistent with my learning as well.  If you have ideas for things I should be learning or would like to share what you are learning put it in the comments below. Right now my thoughts are to wrap up the Kubernetes Deep Dive course then move on to Natural Language Processing (NLP). I’ve got ideas for some really cool projects in NLP so it should be fun.