The DeployBuddy Roadmap
From First Deployment to Production Mastery
Welcome to the official DeployBuddy course roadmap! I'm thrilled to share the complete learning path that will take you from the foundational "why" to mastering a fully automated, production-ready deployment system.
Phase 1: The Core Curriculum
Foundations - The DeployBuddy Philosophy & Setup
We start with the core philosophy behind DeployBuddy, introducing you to the power of Ansible and the affordability of Hetzner. This playlist lays the groundwork and guides you through your first cloud deployment, proving that robust deployments can be simple and fast.
Building Your Secure Deployment Control Center
Every great system needs a command center. Here, we'll build a secure control server (either on a local VM or in the cloud with Hetzner) and install all the essential tools. You'll dive deep into Ansible fundamentals, from managing environments to securing your secrets with Ansible Vault.
Provisioning Your First App Server with Ansible
With your control center ready, you'll use Ansible to automatically provision and harden your first application server. We'll cover everything from network architecture and firewall rules to making your infrastructure code clean and maintainable with roles and variables.
Deploying Your Backend with Controlled Precision (Docker & Ansible)
This is where your code meets the cloud. We'll demystify Docker, containerize your NestJS or Next.js applications, and use Ansible to automate the entire build-and-deploy process. You'll learn to secure your backend with HTTPS effortlessly using Caddy.
Deploying Your Frontend (Docker/Caddy vs. CDN)
A great backend needs a frontend. We'll explore two powerful deployment strategies: a flexible Docker-based approach with Caddy and a globally-accelerated approach using a CDN like Cloudflare. You'll learn to choose the best fit for your project.
Essential DNS & SSL Management
Gain full control over your application's security and accessibility. We'll walk through managing DNS with Cloudflare and Hetzner, mastering security headers, and using Ansible to generate SSL certificates for both public-facing and internal services.
Self-Hosted Databases with Ansible (Control Your Data!)
Stop relying on expensive managed databases and take control of your data. This deep-dive playlist covers everything you need to provision, secure, and manage your own PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, and MongoDB instances. You will learn to implement automated S3 backups, disaster recovery, and connection pooling like a pro.
Scaling Up! Load Balancers & Rolling Updates
Prepare for success by learning how to scale. We'll use Ansible to provision a Hetzner Load Balancer and, most importantly, implement zero-downtime deployments using rolling updates. Your users will never have to see a maintenance page again.
Ongoing Management - The "DeployBuddy" Way
A deployed application is a living system. This playlist gives you the tools for long-term success: automated health checks, server maintenance, snapshot management, effective logging, and budget-friendly monitoring with tools like Uptime Kuma and Grafana.
Troubleshooting
Even with the best automation, issues can arise. This playlist equips you with the essential skills to diagnose and solve common problems, from SSH connection issues to debugging remote Docker containers.
Next Steps & Expanding Your DeployBuddy Skills
To cap off the core curriculum, we'll look to the future by integrating our Ansible scripts with GitHub Actions for a complete CI/CD pipeline, giving you a full recap of your powerful new skill set.
Phase 2: The Future of DeployBuddy
Advanced & Production-Ready
The end of the core curriculum is just the beginning. The "Second Phase" of the DeployBuddy course will focus on battle-hardening your infrastructure for the most demanding production workloads. Here's a preview of what's planned:
High Availability Databases
Move beyond single instances with high-availability clustering for PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, and MongoDB.
Smart Auto-Scaling
Learn to auto-scale your application without the complexity of Kubernetes, using a powerful combination of Grafana metrics and Ansible automation.
Complete Disaster Recovery
We'll build and test a complete disaster recovery plan, with drills that teach you how to rebuild your entire infrastructure from scratch.
Production Battle Stories
Learn from real-world scenarios, from surviving massive traffic surges to managing critical database crises.
The Complete Production Deployment
In a final, capstone-style series, we will deploy a real application from scratch, integrating every concept from the course into a single, production-ready system.
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