Since I’m co-chairing the Devops track at Agile 2015 with Dominica DeGrandis, I figured I’d take the opportunity to meet more folks in the Washington DC area to see what kind of different challenges folks are facing with implementing Chef and Devops in general. One way I’m doing this is an open invite for early edition CoffeeOps. I’m also giving Chef Intermediate on August 10-11 and Chef Fundamentals on August 12-13.

One thing that I really enjoy about Chef (the company) is that we make our training materials available to folks under a Creative Commons license that allows (even encourages) folks to share and adapt the content as long as appropriate credit and licensing is maintained. Every individual that does Chef training teaches a little bit differently in terms of style although the materials are exactly the same. The value in the training isn’t the materials, but the conversations, interactions and space that is created by the actual class. Every class is completely different because the people going to the training are completely different.

Private trainings (trainings for specific companies) are really interesting because we can have really deep discussions about specific topics (depending on time) and it’s easier to get people in a collaborative mindset.

Public trainings are also very interesting because I can encourage folks to cross the chasms between companies and share their individual challenges. I’ve found that depending on the area that I’m training, it can be harder to encourage folks to get into a collaborative mindset. (Shoutout to the trainings I did in Chicago where folks were 100% helpful. Extra kudos to Phaedra Evans and Marvin Street for going above and beyond in supporting their fellow students!)

My goals when training are to create a safe place for folks to learn, share and build connections. All of our trainings fall under the Chef community code of conduct.

In Fundamentals, my goals are to help folks understand the core concepts of chef, read cookbooks confidentally with an eye towards identifying good and bad patterns, write cookbooks, and debug issues that occur through understanding what’s going on. In Intermediate, my goals are to help people to understand more about identifying good patterns in using chef through greater understanding of resources through writing lightweight resource and providers (LWRPs), additional debugging skills, and basic testing while in the process of leveling up ruby skills.

How do you know whether you are ready for Intermediate training?

• Do you understand what happens when chef-client runs?
• Can you explain Chef terminology clearly without having to look it up? i.e. concepts like resource, recipe, cookbook, organizations, roles, environments
• Are you comfortable with your editor of choice and navigating the organization of a Chef cookbook?
• Do you have Chef DK installed on your workstation?

A second thing that I really enjoy about Chef (the company) is the attention to diversity and inclusion measures. Earlier in the year we provided diversity scholarships to Chef Conf. Additionally, we regularly provide training scholarships.

I have a diversity training pass for Chef Fundamentals on August 12-13. Training includes a continental breakfast, lunch, and an assortment of beverages. Please get in touch with me sigje@chef.io if you are available for the days of the class, have transportation to and from the class, have a wifi-enabled laptop, a SSH/SCP agent (OpenSSH, putty/WinSCP or equivalent), and a text editor, and most importantly have an interest in learning how to write infrastructure as code with Chef. Please provide the following information:

• Name
• Contact information
• Background
• Confirmation that you can attend Fundamentals training on August 12-13, 2015 at the MicroTek in Washington DC with a functional laptop.

If you are interested, but feel you don’t have the right skills please get in touch anyways. I will help you identify whether you are gauging your abilities correctly for this Fundamentals class, and also point you in the direction of resources that will help you get the right skills. One resource that is available to you right now is the Learn Chef site that will walk you through some of the initial concepts and prep your workstation to be ready for the class.

I also have a sekret code “HELLO-CHEF” that will take 10% off both Chef Fundamentals and Chef Intermediate.

ETA: Extra special code “WDC20” for 20% off both classes!

The conference and training start early, so if you are an early person and are up for some CoffeeOps time in the DC area let me know!

Sparkle On!