286 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
286 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
Below is the deep, real-world view** of how a **strong SRE/DevOps engineer sits inside a multi-data center (multi-DC) environment built on:
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* MAAS for bare-metal lifecycle
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* Proxmox** for virtualization
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* OpenStack for cloud/IaaS
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* Dedicated networking (L2/L3/VLAN/BGP/EVPN)
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* Automation + Observability spanning all layers
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This is the true role in a modern organization operating multiple sites, GPUs, hybrid workloads, and self-service infrastructure.
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---
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# 🧭 1. **Where the SRE/DevOps Sits in the Architecture**
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A strong SRE/DevOps is positioned **between hardware → platform → developers**, as the owner of the **full infrastructure lifecycle**.
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```
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[ Developers / ML / Platform Teams ]
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▲
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│ Self-service, APIs, IaC
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▼
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┌──────────────────────────┐
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│ Strong SRE/DevOps Owner │ ◄── Reliability, Automation, Architecture
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└──────────────────────────┘
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▲ ▲ ▲
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│ │ │
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[MAAS Bare Metal] [Proxmox] [OpenStack]
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[Cluster Setup ] [VM Infra] [Cloud IaaS]
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▲ ▲ ▲
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└────────────┴─────────────┘
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▼
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Network / Storage
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▼
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Physical DC Infrastructure
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```
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---
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# 🧱 2. **The SRE/DevOps owns the entire stack end-to-end**
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## **A. Bare-Metal Layer (MAAS / Ironic / PXE)**
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The strong SRE/DevOps is responsible for:
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* Multi-DC MAAS region/rack-controller architecture
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* PXE → Preseed → Cloud-init → config mgmt
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* Golden images for Ubuntu (Proxmox/OpenStack nodes)
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* RAID configuration, NIC bonding, BIOS/firmware standards
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* GPU detection, PCIe topology validation
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* Integrating MAAS with CMDB, billing, compute tracking, GPU inventory
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**Why critical?**
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This defines hardware bootstrap & repeatability. Every DC depends on it.
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---
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## **B. Virtualization Layer (Proxmox Clusters)**
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The SRE/DevOps maintains:
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* Multi-node Proxmox clusters per DC
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* Shared storage pools (Ceph, ZFS replication, NVMe tiers)
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* High availability
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* Lifecycle automation for templates, images, API-based VM creation
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* Terraform integration
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* Networking: bonds, bridges, VLAN tagging, VRRP, routing domains
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**Why important?**
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Proxmox often hosts internal systems, CI/CD, observability, runners, and even OpenStack control nodes.
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---
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## **C. Cloud Layer (OpenStack)**
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The SRE/DevOps is responsible for:
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* Kolla-Ansible lifecycle (deploy, upgrade, rollback)
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* Nova, Neutron, Glance, Keystone, Cinder architectures
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* Multi-DC regions/availability zones
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* Underlay support: L2/L3, MTU, VXLAN, BGP EVPN, DHCP/DNS
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* API endpoints, load balancers, certificate rotation
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* Quota management, capacity planning
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* GPU flavors, PCI passthrough, SR-IOV networks
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**Why important?**
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OpenStack provides elastic compute + GPU pools for internal workloads.
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---
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# 🕸️ 3. **SRE/DevOps Responsibilities Across Multi-DC**
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## **A. Multi-DC Strategy & Standardization**
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Across 3-10 DCs, the strong SRE/DevOps ensures:
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* Consistent **naming conventions**, network CIDRs, VLAN plans
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* Identical MAAS rack-controller layout
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* Same Proxmox cluster topology
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* Same OpenStack region layout
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* Unified OS images, configs, automation, observability patterns
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* DC-to-DC failover tested and documented
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* Common CI/CD pipeline for infra changes
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This is architectural leadership.
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---
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## **B. Networking Integration**
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A strong SRE/DevOps is not a network engineer—but understands enough to architect the underlay/overlay needs:
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* VLAN allocation for provisioning, storage, tenants
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* Spine-leaf fabric requirements (MTU, VTEP placements)
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* Routing for MAAS DHCP/TFTP
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* BGP, EVPN, VRRP/Keepalived, LACP bundles
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* Multicast needs for Ceph or Proxmox clusters
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* Tenant isolation (OpenStack Neutron)
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You bridge **compute** and **network**, ensuring both work without finger-pointing.
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---
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## **C. Automation & GitOps Ownership**
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Everything from:
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* MAAS commissioning
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* Proxmox cluster creation
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* OpenStack environment provisioning
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* Network configs
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* Observability stack deployments
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…is defined as **IaC** and deployed via:
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* GitLab/GitHub Actions
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* Terraform
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* Ansible
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* Python automation libraries
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* Event-driven workflows (webhooks, APIs)
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The strong SRE turns the entire infrastructure into a **code forest**, not a collection of manual operations.
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---
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## **D. Reliability Engineering Layer**
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Owns:
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* SLOs for control plane components
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* Prometheus/Grafana dashboards spanning MAAS, hypervisors, OpenStack, networks
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* Alerting strategy
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* Runbooks + automated remediation
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* Incident response framework
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* Capacity projections across DCs (CPU/GPU/NVMe/RAM/network)
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This is what makes the difference between a *DevOps engineer* and a **strong SRE**.
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---
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# ⚙️ 4. **How the SRE/DevOps Interacts with Each Layer (Detailed)**
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---
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# **Layer 1 — Hardware (Bare-metal servers)**
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### You ensure:
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* consistent hardware standards
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* automated testing/commissioning
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* BIOS/firmware alignment
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* RAID and BMC integration
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* DC racks follow a uniform provisioning model
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---
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# **Layer 2 — MAAS Region Controllers**
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### You design:
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* Region ↔ Rack hierarchy
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* HA for MAAS API
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* DHCP/TFTP separation per DC
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* Multi-DC image mirrors
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* Secure API integration with downstream systems
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* Lifecycle automation from “server purchased” → “in production”
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---
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# **Layer 3 — Proxmox Virtualization**
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### You own:
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* cluster deployment automation
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* storage pools (Ceph, ZFS)
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* backup/restore strategy
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* VM template pipeline
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* Terraform-driven VM creation
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* GPU virtualization, passthrough, SR-IOV setups
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---
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# **Layer 4 — OpenStack Cloud**
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### You architect:
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* multi-region API
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* Keystone federation
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* Nova scheduling across DCs and AZs
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* Neutron routing domains
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* Cinder backends, replication
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* Glance image replication
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* CI/CD for Kolla upgrades
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* Observability for every control plane service
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---
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# **Layer 5 — Networking Integration**
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### You interface deeply with:
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* BGP (underlay and overlay)
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* EVPN-VXLAN
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* VLAN-to-tenant isolation
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* Proxmox/MAAS provisioning networks
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* OpenStack Neutron overlays
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* DC interconnects (L2 extensions, MPLS, routing)
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You don't configure all routers—but you design the service topology and requirements.
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---
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# **Layer 6 — Observability & Operations**
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### You build:
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* Prometheus federation
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* Loki/ELK pipelines
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* GPU telemetry exporters
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* DC health dashboards
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* Error budget reports
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* Synthetic probes for OpenStack APIs
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* Capacity dashboards (CPU/GPU/storage per DC)
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---
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# **Layer 7 — Self-service Interfaces**
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You provide:
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* VM creation portals (via Proxmox API or Terraform Cloud)
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* Bare-metal on-demand via MAAS API
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* GPU cloud flavors via OpenStack API
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* Internal developer services (logging, metrics, backups, secrets)
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This is what **developers and ML engineers see**.
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---
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# 💼 5. **The Mission of a Strong SRE in Multi-DC Environments**
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### **You build a unified infrastructure fabric across all DCs.**
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Your goals:
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✔ Zero manual provisioning
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✔ Zero snowflake clusters
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✔ Infrastructure reproducible from Git
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✔ All DCs behave identically
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✔ High availability across regions
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✔ Stable, predictable performance for GPU workloads
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✔ Automated OS, hypervisor, and control-plane lifecycle
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✔ Capacity planning, telemetry, and self-healing
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✔ Clear SLIs/SLOs for infra services
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✔ Security controls embedded in workflows
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This is the **modern definition** of SRE excellence.
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---
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# 📌 6. One sentence summary
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**A strong SRE/DevOps is the architect and owner of the entire infrastructure lifecycle across multi-DC bare-metal, virtualization, cloud, networking, and automation, ensuring everything is reproducible, observable, reliable, and scalable.**
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---
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