Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Automation Engineer - Essential setup, tools, software, and environment

 To work as an Automation Engineer (focusing on Open Source and Power Platform) as an individual contributor in roles like Developer, Solution Architect, and Delivery Person, you'll need a comprehensive setup covering development, testing, deployment, and monitoring. Below is a structured list of the essential setup, tools, software, and environment you'll need:


Setup and Environment

1. Hardware Setup

  • Laptop/PC – Minimum specs:
    • CPU: Intel i7 or equivalent
    • RAM: 16 GB (32 GB preferred)
    • SSD: 512 GB+
    • Graphics: Not critical, but a dedicated GPU helps with AI/ML workloads

2. Operating System

  • Windows 10/11 or Linux (Ubuntu) – Dual boot if required
  • Virtual Machines (Optional): VMware or VirtualBox for testing
  • Containers: Docker and Kubernetes for containerized deployment

🚀 Development Tools

1. IDE/Editors

  • Visual Studio Code – (for both open-source and Power Platform)
  • Visual Studio – (for Power Platform development)
  • Eclipse/IntelliJ – (if Java is involved)
  • Postman – (API testing)

2. Scripting and Automation Languages

  • PowerShell – For automating Windows tasks and Power Platform
  • Python – For automation, data processing, and AI
  • JavaScript – For Power Platform custom connectors and UI
  • Bash – For Linux-based automation

3. Version Control

  • Git – (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)

🌐 Open Source Automation Tools

1. RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

  • UiPath Community Edition – Widely used for automation
  • OpenRPA – Open-source RPA tool
  • TagUI – Open-source CLI-based automation

2. CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment)

  • Jenkins – Open-source automation server
  • GitHub Actions – For automating builds and releases
  • Ansible – Infrastructure automation

3. Testing

  • Selenium – For web-based automation
  • Appium – For mobile automation
  • PyTest – For Python-based testing

🏆 Power Platform Tools

1. Power Automate – Workflow automation

2. Power Apps – App development

3. Power BI – Business Intelligence and reporting

4. Data verse – Data management

5. Custom Connectors – For extending Power Platform capabilities


🌍 Database and Storage

1. Open Source

  • MySQL – Relational database
  • PostgreSQL – Advanced relational database
  • MongoDB – NoSQL database

2. Microsoft Stack

  • SQL Server – For Power Platform integration
  • SharePoint – For file and data storage

🔒 Security and Compliance

  • OAuth 2.0 / SAML – Authentication protocols
  • Microsoft Defender – Security monitoring
  • Azure Active Directory (AAD) – User access control

📢 Deployment and Monitoring

  • Docker – For containerized deployment
  • Kubernetes – For scaling
  • Prometheus – For monitoring
  • Grafana – For data visualization
  • Azure DevOps – For pipeline management and monitoring

🧠 AI and ML Integration (Optional)

  • OpenAI API – For language models and automation
  • TensorFlow / PyTorch – For AI/ML development
  • Hugging Face – For NLP tasks

🎯 Documentation and Collaboration

  • Confluence – For internal documentation
  • Notion – Personal productivity and notes
  • MS Teams / Slack – For team collaboration
  • Jira – For task and project management

💡 Other Useful Tools

  • Fiddler – For network traffic debugging
  • Insomnia – API client
  • Power Toys – Productivity enhancements for Windows

Summary

You'll need a mix of open-source and Power Platform tools to cover automation, development, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

  • Open Source: Python, Selenium, Jenkins, Ansible
  • Power Platform: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI
  • Monitoring & Deployment: Docker, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps
  • Security: OAuth, Microsoft Defender

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