S4 Ep112: Why an AIOps Certification is something you should think about

Join Eveline Oehrlich and Suresh GP whilst they discuss why an AIOps Certification is something you should think about.

Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:02):
You're listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a
podcast focused on advancing thehumans of DevOps through skills,
knowledge, ideas, and learning,or the skil framework.

Suresh GP (00:17):
I'm a big fan of sacred lab in genetic right. I
do a lot of work on consultingcoaching on site allottee.
Engineers and I, as I start witha lot of the operations teams,
they are leveraging these newapproaches because reliability
is becoming the most importantquestion at a board level.

Eveline Oehrlich (00:32):
Welcome to the humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm
Evelyn early Chief ResearchOfficer at people search. Our
podcast title today isnavigating the future. deep dive
on a AI ops certification. Veryexciting topic, very close and
dear to my heart. And we have avery special person with us

(00:54):
today. We have Shor's GP who isthe managing director at Tao
solutions. Hello, Suresh.

Suresh GP (01:02):
Hey, Evelyn. Thanks for having me at this podcast,
really looking forward for somegreat conversation today.

Eveline Oehrlich (01:07):
Yes, likewise. So let me share quickly show us
your background with ourlisteners so that they know who
they are dealing with, because Ithink that's quite important. So
sure, she is the managingdirector of top solutions in
Singapore, USA and India. He isone of the top 2021 CRMs. He is
top 25 influencers in the ITSMby HDI and also a global

(01:33):
ambassador of DevOps Institute,which is where shrewish and I
actually have met. He is the coauthor of the SRE practitioner
and observability foundationcourse of DevOps Institute. He
has over 22 years and moreindustry. And he's a respected
thought leader in areas of ITSM,DevOps, Site Reliability
Engineering, and PRM. And heprovides consulting coaching for

(01:57):
Fortune 2000 organisations. Soshortage, my first question is,
what does top solution standfor?

Suresh GP (02:05):
Well, it's a great question that you asked me, top
solution stands for taking youbeyond. So when we started top
solutions, in 2014, we wanted tobuild a company that took our
customers business partners toenvision business outcomes. So
wherever they are in the journeyof transformation, as we all

(02:26):
call it, we want to take them into envision business outcomes.
So top was playing the role ofconsulting coaching training
organisation to take thembeyond.

Eveline Oehrlich (02:36):
Super. Wow, I love that, that that is really
sharing some passion there youhave with customers. And I've
always noticed that with youevery time we had interacted in
the larger group, which ledleads me to you've been an
ambassador for the DevOpsInstitute since 2019. Is that
correct? Yeah, that's right.That's absolutely right. Great.

(02:56):
So first of all, thank you, andcongratulations to have such a
long journey. And I, you and Ihave not met in person. So we
have to put that on our dancecard, as I like to say, but
besides that, tell us a littlebit about the role of an
ambassador, how, what is it? Andhow has that helped you?

Suresh GP (03:17):
Absolutely. I think, if you remember, if I remember
correctly, I was the firstDevOps Institute Ambassador
picked up by the DevOpsInstitute, way back in 2019. And
that's a very great honour,right? So DevOps Institute was
looking at improving their brandequity by handpicking
ambassadors across the globe,right. So the purpose of being
an ambassador was to spearheadthe humans of DevOps as you and

(03:39):
I know, we've been verypassionate about spearheading
the humans of DevOps. So theprimary objective of being an
ambassador was to shareknowledge and wisdom across
people. Now, if I look at whatis that helped me over the
years, being an ambassador forthe last five years now, it's
been an amazing opportunity todo knowledge sharing in terms of

(04:04):
skill updates, skill up events,DevOps meetup days, and helping
people to build DevOpscapability. Now, one of the
things that fitted, fitted to mymission, as part of running top
solutions was to make an impactto people globally in the form
of consulting, coaching andtraining. And for me, there's so

(04:25):
much joy when you give back tothe community, right? And I've
always believed Evelyn, that ifyou don't give back to the
community, then it's a crimebecause we have got so much
benefits by being a part of thiscohort by being part of the
larger mind share. And it isonly appropriate to give and
share learnings and also helpand mentor people. And I think

(04:48):
for me, that has been afulfilling my personal mission
and as actually made a lot offriends and network across the
globe.

Eveline Oehrlich (04:55):
very honourable and impact you have
made absolutely I can see that.And then when you said 2019, and
five years ago, I'm thinking, Isit really five years ago? Oh my
god, that is very scary. Okay.Let us continue. So I say you
are also an instructor, but Ithink you said you don't like

(05:16):
the word instructor but I stillwill say tell me a little bit
about that role at at DevOpsInstitute and what you've been
doing so in this role,
Suresh GP:

(05:44):
Eveline Oehrlich:
Suresh GP:
Eveline Oehrlich:

(06:13):
Suresh GP:
Eveline Oehrlich:
Suresh GP:

(06:38):
Eveline Oehrlich:

Suresh GP (07:00):
Right. So I would call myself as a facilitator
Evelynn rather than instructorI've been always passionate to
teach marignan best practicesand best practice framework
since 2014. As a trainer orfacilitator, I learned a lot
from the participants, right,and the opportunity to deliver
engagements, both physically andvirtually remember, prior to
COVID-19. Were doing a lot ofthose training programmes and

(07:24):
was integrated workshopphysically. And it's been an
enriching experience, right. Forme, it's also the passion of
giving back, as I said in theearlier question, and it also
reinforces when I was awardedthe best coach or trainer award
by the business relationshipmanagement institute in 2019, at

(07:44):
New Orleans, and it was atestimonial to provide great
value to participants. And forme, it is also to instil the
habit of continuous learning,because one of the things that I
believe truly as a facilitatoris to keep ourselves on a
continual learning spree. Butalso make sure that we are well

(08:07):
aware and acute with all thelatest trends. And you know
better because you do a lot ofresearch in terms of providing
value added content for peoplein the industry. So make it a
practice to execute myself withindustry leading certifications,
that has helped me to connectthe dots over various aspects.
This is particularly importantbecause a lot of these training

(08:28):
programmes or workshops, you getpeople from different
backgrounds who come there andconnect. So you will have people
from development, infrastructureoperations, testing, project
management, ci organisations, soit has helped me to connect the
dots with various leading bestpractices and frameworks,

(08:49):
including DevOps, ITIL, appengineering, observability, and
EOPS.

Eveline Oehrlich (08:54):
And in the AI ops, we have a common passion.
As you might remember, maybe inone or the other meetings, we
discussed AI ops, I've beenresearching and advising in my
previous career at ForresterResearch on the topic of
application performancemanagement. And this topic,
interestingly, has changed inmorphed into multiple topics

(09:17):
today. It's actually there's anentire new paths, in particular
growth and adoption around AI inIT operations. And if we think
about AI ops, and it's, it's,it's origine really was defined
by a analyst friend of mine atGartner. And it really was a

(09:38):
simpler definition at the timein terms of AI ops was the
adoption of AI in terms and inways IT operations to make it
much easier for folks in IT opsto analyse and predict things
before they could cause impact.And that's kind of the backdrop
I wanted to share. But before weget into a AI ops, you've been

(10:01):
doing work around this. Andyou've, I'm sure have some
thoughts and on the expansion ofAPM into AI ops and
observability. Were in it. Thiscouple of questions here. So
give us your thoughts on thisentire APM into AI ops and
observability. And then where init? Are these new approaches to

(10:23):
monitoring us to are these userswho are the target audience for
AI ops APM does still exist?observability? What are your
thoughts around all of that?

Suresh GP (10:34):
That's a great question, Evelyn. So I think
thanks a lot for your workaround the application
performance management space,that has revolutionised the way
we look at the whole ecosystemtoday, right? Today, if you look
at a lot of our customers, theyare looking at the end user
experience, right. So today, weare living in an attention
deficient syndrome, and even asingle minute of downtime is

(10:55):
going to make them make peopleparanoid about it. Now, we are
traditionally focused onmonitoring this at a server
level. But then I think thiswhole proliferation of devices
that we are dealing withtablets, desktops, mobile
devices, has brought us thewhole client specific
information. And I think APMdoes a great job to look at

(11:19):
providing us great insightstowards user experience from the
client side part. It is onlylogical for APM. aspect to go
into the predictive aspects.Remember, in the earlier word,
we used to do reactive from anincident management standpoint,
everything some happened,something broke down an accident

(11:40):
server going off, we actuallydid something to fix that. So it
was more reactive as part ofincident management, then we
started to move towards eventmonitoring, as well as the
overall correlation engine,where we kind of becoming a
little more proactive,determining the thresholds and
aspects in which we wanted tostart with. But now the world is

(12:00):
changing. A lot of our customersthat we are dealing with are
saying how can you be morepredictive? We don't want to be
the same level of reactive andproactive because we have
invested a lot of time andefforts on processes, best
practices, tools, and also onthe skill side. So can you help
us to move into that predictivespace? Now, that's where the
real genesis of AI ops becomesvery important, because APM

(12:24):
tools give you a little bit ofan understanding around what's
good, what is the probably theproblematic areas and you're
able to nail down. But I thinkwe need to move towards that
element of predictability. So alot of people do ask us about
difference between monitoringand observability, just for all
our viewers monitoring istelling you the symptoms, right?

(12:45):
It tells you something isbroken, but it doesn't tell you
exactly what is broken. So butobservability, on the other
hand, is able to give you alittle bit of identifying root
causes, right? And root causesis not just one to one, there
could be one too many reasonswhy something failed. And that's
an area that I think isimportant to assimilate to make

(13:06):
that work. So that probablyanswers your first question. The
second one, where he talkedabout who is the user of these
automation? Or where are weapplying it? I'm a big fan of
cycle app engineering, right? Ido a lot of work on consulting
coaching on site allotteeengineers. And I, as I start
with a lot of the operationsteams support teams and SR ease,

(13:26):
they are leveraging these newapproaches, because reliability
is becoming the most importantquestion at a board level.
Right? So gone are the days thatwe were just talking about
keeping the lights on Bau thatis gone off, right people are
looking at now to becomereliability is the most
important first class citizen.Now if you're asking reliability

(13:47):
to be the first class citizen,how are we going to even make
this work? So this requires usto have new approaches to move
towards that predictive servicemanagement option. And for me,
all the saris and operationsteam are looking at what can I
do to self heal and autoremediation options because at
the end of the day, we talk alot about these style, right, we

(14:09):
spent way too much time onresolving incidents. So we are
not leveraging the power of aops. So hopefully, with a ops
with predictability, can weactually bring in that level of
runbook automation self scripts,which will help us to do self
healing and auto remediationbecause it will do two things,
it will reduce recoil, it willimprove my productivity, and we
can focus on things that reallymakes the most important sense.

(14:33):
So for me, those are the realpeople who are really looking
out for leveraging AI ops tomake their life and the
organisation better.

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Eveline Oehrlich (15:19):
You know, as a literally old IT ops person, I
would just want to go back to myrole I had many years back,
leveraging this type oftechnology. So very exciting.
Thank you. Let's get to the meatof our conversation, which is
your work on the AI opscertification? today. So people

(15:41):
sorted in DevOps Institute, onecan get certified for AI ops
tell us shores? What does thatentail? Are there any
prerequisites one has to go andhave before that? How difficult
is it what we'll want to learn?Tell us a little bit about the
certification course because Ireally would like the audience
to get excited about it. And ofcourse, take and get certified

(16:04):
so that they can actually dosome very amazing things in
their role.

Suresh GP (16:09):
Absolutely. I think AI Ops is pretty hot on the on
the block, I call is that aopsis? That new kid on the block
with DevOps Institute peoplecertcertifications? It's a two day
course. It's well curated byexperienced practitioners
telling us, what is the value ofAOPs? But your first question,

(16:30):
this is a two day coursedelivered by people sir DevOps
Institute partners. So topsolutions is one of the elite
partners of the DevOpsInstitute. So who can be
attending this session likeanyone from IT support IT
operations predominantly,because it's talking about AI in

(16:51):
the, in the view of Operationsetup, right. So if you are from
it servicemen background, if youare from an IT operations
background, you want to leveragethe power of air ops to reduce
incidents, because that's goingto be a very important key era
that has that would become amuch more important exercise.
Now, one of the things we arevery passionate about as top

(17:12):
solutions is that we offer arange of certification courses,
that fits very logically. Now,I'm trying to bring this because
you've asked this question ofwhat are some of the
prerequisites. Now what we haveseen in the last eight to nine
years, as we have started towork with the DevOps Institute
products, we we have a big fanfollowing when we started off

(17:34):
with site lab engineeringfoundation, then they actually
enhance their career optionstowards Cipherlab engineering
practitioner. And then we movedon to observability Foundation,
because in SRE practitioner, weonly focused on one module on
observability. And they wantedto have a dedicated aspect of
observability, because the wholetrend of moving from monitoring
and observability became moremore important sense. So as

(17:57):
people went on through theobservatory Foundation, they
understand in the maturitymodel, one of the important
aspects of the maturity model isbecoming more towards
predictability. And that's wherethe aiops really fits in, very
logically. And that's how thisAOPs foundation course is being
structured. So as far as thecontent is concerned, I want to

(18:19):
give you a high level topics ofwhat we cover in the two day
programme. So we first set thecontext of what is a ops in the
organisational context, right?What are the core technologies?
So we talk a little bit aboutdata, we talk about machine
learning, we also start to focuson what are your operation
metrics, because typically, theoperations team have the first

(18:40):
call resolution, they look atresponse time resolution time,
MTTR, NT TD. Now, how does thatall play out with the advent of
AI ops, because we need to makesure that this is helping them
to make an impact in the waythat they solve incidents. It's
becoming more proactive. So wealso share some of those

(19:00):
practical use cases of how AIops can be beneficial because
what I've seen is a lot ofpeople are asking for what kind
of use cases can I pick up thatwe can start implementing
because this certificationprogramme is not just to give
you the principles, thephilosophy, the practices, but
also instilling a level ofcuriosity, of how can I pick up

(19:23):
some of these learnings thatI've had in the two day
workshop? Back to yourworkplace, and it's also about
the mindset and we you and Iknow very much as part of
transformations. It's also abringing up the cultural
mindset, the cultural nuances ofthinking, how can we work as a
team to holistically fullestfacilitate this whole

(19:44):
transformation? So we talk alittle bit about evaluating the
aiops impact. And finally, theproof is on the on the pudding.
Right? So we talk aboutimplementing AI ops in the
organisation. So what we alsodo, Evelyn as part of this work
workshop because we havedesigned it, we give some
practical use cases and demo howwe went about implementing AI

(20:06):
ops in organisation that is veryfascinating for people because
you can learn a lot of theoryabout people process technology.
But how does it all worktogether in tandem? And how can
we make that more practical? Andthat's where I think there's a
lot of value in people gettingthat benefit of AI ops and

(20:26):
relating it to the workplace.

Eveline Oehrlich (20:28):
Sounds like an exciting two days, certainly, I
think. Now, the next question,you've already alluded a little
bit towards it, but I'll ask itagain, it's, it's in two parts.
We know it's not just done tohave a certification right as a
single person, because theapproach of AI Ops is actually
beyond what one personpotentially can do relative to

(20:52):
automation of the challengesaround services and software and
availability. And as you statedso beautifully the reliability
as a first class citizen, I lovethat, by the way, it's certainly
a great opportunity for peopleout there who are wanting to
advance their careers. But sohere comes the question, What
can one expect as a once aperson has gone through the

(21:15):
certification? Is this worth apromotion? Is this a change in
role is the more money? Otherbenefits? I think you like I
said, You alluded to a few ofthose things already. So that's
the part one of the question.I'll pause, and then we'll go to
part two. Sure.

Suresh GP (21:33):
So that's a great question. Because at the end of
the day, Evelyn, you and I knowvery well, right, people are
investing time and effort andmoney, right? What is the return
on investment? Let's be veryclear, right? So a lot of times
we do this intake process,Evelyn, where we ask these
questions, you know, why are weattending this course, you know,
sometimes they say that mymanager asked to attend this

(21:53):
course, that's why I'm doing it,or I want to go to a career
progression. So we really wantto understand the needs of your
audience. And I think that'svery important, because each and
every one has got their ownexpectations, in involvement,
interest, and stuff like that.So but what I've seen over and
beyond, in the last six, sevenyears that I've actually been in

(22:15):
the training space, one of themost important reasons people
attend these workshops is tobecome relevant in the digital
age, you and I know with allthis chat, GPT and generative
AI, there's a huge push, andpeople are trying to reevaluate
themselves to see whether Istill remain relevant. Do I know
things that are making mecompetent to be at the
workplace, because there isalways a threat to humanity in

(22:38):
terms of whether the robots andAI is will replace people. But I
always believe that there's alot of work that human beings
can do. And that's why we dothis episode of humans of
DevOps, but how to make oneproductive, right? Because with
a lot of things that people arejuggling day today, it's
important for people to be moreproductive to focus on things

(23:01):
that really matter the most,which means we need to leverage
technology advancement to makeit more impactful to the
business at the end of the day,or to be harnessed the business
doesn't care about whether it'sDevOps, SRE, a ops machine
learning observability, theywant to really look at
profitability, improve marketshare, ensuring reliability,
improving customer experience.So we need to understand various

(23:24):
scenarios and use cases. And forme, this will become a very
important part of addressing theneeds of the business. Because
to be honest, if you want to getyour promotions, if you want to
have a pay raise, you have tosolve real world problems. If
you want to solve real worldproblems, it also means that we
need to understand what's theburning or challenge that your

(23:45):
organisation faces. And I telljokingly, if you want to get
promoted, you need to solve yourboss problem. And then you get
advanced in your career ahead.So that's my thought around this
whole space of what people gainstand to gain. What is it for
me, when they go about thesecertification programmes?
Perhaps one caveat is attendthese courses with someone who
is practitioner, right? So weare not teaching a course by

(24:07):
death by PowerPoint. Butbringing in the real world
experience, people can interfaceand understand how we can apply.

Eveline Oehrlich (24:14):
Well said, now take that up one level and share
with us a little bit about thebigger approach for the team.
You already said that for thebusiness. But I think what I'd
love to see is a little bit morearound, what can I do to bring
the team along right? And howcan I impact the rest of the

(24:36):
site reliability engineers orothers, beyond my own career?
What are your thoughts there?

Suresh GP (24:42):
That's a great one, right? So I always want to start
with a quote, right if you wantto move faster, walk alone, but
if you want to move farther,walk along with your team. So
it's absolutely important tocarry your team along and I call
this as a cohort, pod squad,whatever you call it is right
because As at the end of theday, it's the team that matters.

(25:02):
Right? So having said that, Ithink each and every one in the
value chain will have to playthat infinite game like what
Simon Sinek plays, right? So youneed to continuously improve
yourself to be a better versionof yourself, call it as version
two, version three, or version2023 in a way that we can
improvise the whole aspect ofdoing it. So I asked and, and

(25:22):
request a lot of people who gothrough the certification,
whether your individual startthinking about the big picture,
right? What is your role? Andwhat is your overall focus as a
company as a product as aservice company? As a cohort?
What do you want to achieve?Right? How are your roles
typically fitting, so it couldbe a sight lap engineer, you
could be a DevOps engineer, youcould be an operational

(25:45):
specialist, think about what isyour current role that you're
playing in? So what is the focusof end goal? So you can call it
as k RAS? You can call it asOKRs. You can call it as KPIs,
whatever you call, what is yourend objective? What's the
outcome that we are envisioningto keep this done? Now, you all
know that the whole landscape ischanging pretty fast. And we
have to adapt and adapt to thechanging lifecycle, right? So we

(26:10):
call it the Guca. World ofvolatile, uncertain, complex,
ambiguous word. So what it meansis that we have to reevaluate
our processes look at processreengineering, look at the tool
stack of tool chain that we arehaving, and seeing what does it
take us for making this shiftmoving forward? So I ask people
to come with a curious andinquisitive mindset, because

(26:30):
when it comes to the programme,you're not just coming up for
the ticking the box to getyourself certified, but start
thinking about what problemsshould I address going back to
the workplace. So please make anote of having your questions
listed down when you come fromthis programme, because you
might not get all the answersimmediately. But at least you
will start thinking on thoselines. That's the first thing,
understand the big picture. Andfor me, it's also about

(26:53):
continuous learning andimprovement, you don't learn
just by doing certificationprogramme or reading books,
attend meetups, this DevOpsmeetups, the skill updates, the
podcast that we are all talkingabout, because you get a lot of
wisdom from these people who arepassionately sharing day in and
day out. And more importantly,think about how you can

(27:14):
contribute back to the workplacebecause there's no much fun,
even if they don't contributeback, because then I feel a
sense of belonging, that I'm notjust worried about my career, my
progression, I'm not selfishenough. But I want to give back
to the team. And if everybody inthe value chain resonates with
that philosophy, then how can Imake my life my job my business
a lot more productive?Effectively? You think it's

(27:36):
gonna be magical? I think that'sa man, one of my final code is
that you don't think like, howdo you build high performing
teams, high performing teams arenot built by high performers.
Frankly, it's ordinary peopledoing ordinary things
extraordinarily well. So how canyou have ordinary people doing
ordinary things extraordinary?Well, because you're driven by a

(27:56):
purpose, you're driven by thebig picture of making an impact.
And if everybody starts to thinkwith that purpose, how we can
make the life of our customersof partners of our providers
better, I think you would havehad a definite impact and this
certification will become a fuelto go in that journey of making
things magical.

Eveline Oehrlich (28:17):
Very inspirational. I love listening
to you, but we have to finishour podcasts. And I have one
closing question for you. If youhave time for doing something
fun. What do you do?

Suresh GP (28:32):
Well, I love travelling across the globe and
meeting people with differentethnicity, culture and
diversified experience. I've hadthe opportunity to do it in 26
different countries, and I'mstill learning. I love reading
books playing badminton, and I'ma fitness freak, so I do
swimming regularly. Finally, Ilove posting content around
productivity hacks andentrepreneurship because I think
all work and no play makes Jacka dull boy. So I wanted to kind

(28:54):
of bring in some of thoseaspects of people can think
there is there is aspects beyondwork and have fun around the
journey.

Eveline Oehrlich (29:02):
You have been exceptional. This has been
fantastic shores. Thank you so,so much for your time. Really
appreciate it.

Suresh GP (29:12):
My pleasure even to have me on this podcast and hope
the viewers get inspired to dothis some of the certificate
courses and enhance them intheir career. And thank you so
much for doing the great workfor inspiring a lot of humans of
DevOps, to take action and moveforward in their career.

Eveline Oehrlich (29:29):
Fantastic. We have been talking to shores GP
Managing Director at taupessolutions again, thank you for
joining me today shortish onhumans of DevOps podcast. Humans
of DevOps podcast is produced bypeoplecert and DevOps Institute.
Our audio production teamincludes Daniel Newman shots and
Ingrid sides. I am humans ofDevOps podcast executive

(29:51):
producer, evolutionarily, if youwould like to join us on a
podcast, just contact me orreach out to humans of DevOps
podcast. asked at DevOpsinstitute.com. I think that's
the longest email, soil. I'mEvelyn early. Talk to you soon.

Narrator (30:10):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of
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