DevOps.com

  • Latest
    • Articles
    • Features
    • Most Read
    • News
    • News Releases
  • Topics
    • AI
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • Cloud
    • Culture
    • DataOps
    • DevSecOps
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • DevOps Practice
    • ROELBOB
    • DevOps Toolbox
    • IT as Code
  • Videos/Podcasts
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
    • DevOps Unbound
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • Calendar View
    • On-Demand Webinars
  • Library
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Calendar View
    • On-Demand Events
  • Sponsored Content
  • Related Sites
    • Techstrong Group
    • Cloud Native Now
    • Security Boulevard
    • Techstrong Research
    • DevOps Chat
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps TV
    • Techstrong TV
    • Techstrong.tv Podcast
    • Techstrong.tv - Twitch
  • Media Kit
  • About
  • Sponsor
  • AI
  • Cloud
  • CI/CD
  • Continuous Testing
  • DataOps
  • DevSecOps
  • DevOps Onramp
  • Platform Engineering
  • Sustainability
  • Low-Code/No-Code
  • IT as Code
  • More
    • Application Performance Management/Monitoring
    • Culture
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • ROELBOB
Hot Topics
  • Nobl9 Unfurls Reliability Center for Managing SLOs
  • Harness Launches Open Source Gitness Platform
  • Documentation as Code: A Game Changer for DevOps Teams?
  • Innersourcing Open Source Principles in the Enterprise
  • Survey Surfaces Major Observability Challenges

Blogs Key NoOps Insights From DevOps Leaders

Key NoOps Insights From DevOps Leaders

Avatar photoBy: Darren Broemmer on March 31, 2021 Leave a Comment

NoOps is coming, in some form or another. Whether you have homegrown DevOps or outsourced DevOps, it’s time to realize that a simpler way is coming: NoOps automation. We spoke with a group of IT pros to get their perspective and insights, including James Rutt, CIO, The Dana Foundation; Rahul Subramaniam, CEO, DevFactory; and Mark Hahn, director of DevOps and cloud strategies, Ciber Global.

Forrester Research defines NoOps as the goal of completely automating the deployment, monitoring and management of applications and the infrastructure on which they run.

The next generation of PaaS platforms is evolving to meet this goal. If development teams prefer not to deal with operations or lack the necessary skill sets, they can opt into platforms that provide standardized best-in-class operations with minimal hassle. This also accelerates the evolution of their infrastructure to emerging technologies such as Kubernetes and containers. Not only that, but it can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost. However, the NoOps concept is not without its own bit of controversy.

Insight #1: The End Goal is to Empower Development Teams

Mark Hahn: “The differences [between DevOps and NoOps] have a lot to do with shifting left more on all of the processes. With DevOps, teams have to rely on various operations and infrastructure support services. With NoOps, the goal is to make those teams fully self-sufficient.”

Automation is the key to this self-sufficiency. Continuous integration and deployment automation can be created and configured by the DevOps team or provided by the platform (NoOps). In either case, the end goal is to empower the team such that they can focus more on the business problem at hand than deployment.

In a DevOps model, a few developers on the team typically manage the continuous integration pipelines and their associated deployments. This includes the creation of the application stack and subsequent updates, as well as observability and scalability mechanisms. The widespread availability of infrastructure-as-code and associated APIs has made this possible.

NoOps platforms provide these capabilities without much additional work by developers, thus enabling application teams to accelerate their delivery velocity. This does come at the cost of some flexibility. Teams with special requirements, such as GPU-centric environments or extremely high-scale use cases, may opt to build their own infrastructure to meet their individual needs.
Most teams don’t need the additional complexity, though, and are better served to avoid it. Applications with a user base in the low thousands will likely not need much beyond the standard configuration provided with frameworks such as Spring Boot or .Net Core. You start with just the infrastructure you need, avoid solving problems you don’t have and leverage only select offerings from cloud providers.

Insight #2: Consistently Making the Right Infrastructure Choices is Hard

Rahul Subramaniam: “We have far too many choices; making the right choices is extraordinarily hard. When you build a Spring Boot application, the number of deployment choices you make is ten times what it was even five years ago.”

“I’ve seen teams that put together really large CI/CD pipelines that run thousands of builds a day. The problem is, it works for 50% of the teams really well, and the other half are struggling. For developers building Java-based systems, it works great, but those that are doing Android development, it doesn’t support mobile applications well,” added Hahn.

The NoOps approach has a key dimension that extends beyond automation. The infrastructure landscape is continually evolving, and developers are faced with a growing array of choices as they deploy and manage applications. How can teams know which are the right tools to pick? There are too many out there to be an expert on all of them.

Consider the area of observability, where choices range from open-source solutions such as Prometheus and Grafana to commercial offerings such as Dynatrace and DataDog. Is the extra value added by the commercial offerings worth it? Is it a requirement for your application?

It can be difficult to say, upfront. Oftentimes, the best way to learn how to operate your service is to operate your service. Starting with an opinionated, bundled solution gets you started quickly and puts you in a position where you can learn those lessons. With NoOps, the infrastructure arrives ready-to-go, right out of the box. You can focus on your core business function and not worry about the deployment mechanism. This shrinks the surface area where errors may occur, and improves the efficiency of development teams. From a management perspective, the reduced cost is also quite appealing.

Mark Hahn offered a different perspective on this topic. He noted that if there is one opinionated CI/CD framework, it may suit some teams well but not the others. Teams that develop various components may have different requirements; thus, they may need the option to build their own pipelines. This is a consideration to keep in mind as organizations seek to adopt the NoOps philosophy.

Insight #3: Evolve from NoOps to DevOps, Instead of the Reverse

James Rutt: “There is a broad assumption that DevOps is mature, whereas in most shops, they feel mature in some areas of the value stream but not necessarily in the synchronization of all the tools. Now, we are talking about another quantum leap into NoOps. Do you think we are jumping ahead too quickly?”

DevOps and NoOps represent a spectrum, rather than a conflict where one wins over the other. Many applications don’t need a highly engineered infrastructure, as opposed to companies like Amazon and Netflix who require it. Thus, don’t over-architect solutions until the time where you need to. Grow into DevOps when it becomes a business priority for you. For Amazon, it is a business priority to manage that infrastructure. For you, it may not be.

Subramaniam made the point that teams should actually begin with the NoOps approach as the default. Look for NoOps solutions out there to quickly get started, and at some point, you may need to manage that infrastructure yourself as your business grows or requires it.

Another consideration is that not all organizations are at the point where developers can make choices independently. You always want the business and technology groups to be in alignment. This is where more traditional processes fall into place. Further, DevOps teams typically place numerous checks and balances in their systems. For example, custom pipelines enable reconciliations and cross-checks to make sure the data being operated on is correct and accurate.

Insight #4: NoOps Platforms vary by Cloud Provider

For developers running on Google’s cloud, App Engine “lets app developers build scalable web and mobile back ends in any programming language on a fully managed serverless platform.” Teams running on AWS can use Engine Yard Kontainers from DevGraph to “deploy apps in one click directly from your Git repo.” There is also AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which bills itself as “an easy-to-use service for deploying and scaling web applications and services” on one of their supported technology stacks.

Regardless of DevOps versus NoOps, our interviewees agreed that development teams need to be empowered. Gone are the days where you can afford to spend time on undifferentiated activities or wait on dependent service teams. Focus on the business value from day one, make it observable and use the platform that best enables you to accomplish that goal.

Recent Posts By Darren Broemmer
  • How to Gain Greater Value From DevOps
Avatar photo More from Darren Broemmer
Related Posts
  • Key NoOps Insights From DevOps Leaders
  • Redefining NoOps to Better Inform IT Decision-Making
  • Up Your DevOps Game: It’s Time for NoOps
    Related Categories
  • AI
  • Blogs
  • NoOps
    Related Topics
  • Administration
  • application automation
  • it automation
  • noops
Show more
Show less

Filed Under: AI, Blogs, NoOps Tagged With: Administration, application automation, it automation, noops

« The Surprising Secret to DevOps ROI
Granulate Collaborates with Intel to Show Improved Java-Based Performance Results Using Granulate Intel Agent for Real-Time Continuous Optimization »

Techstrong TV – Live

Click full-screen to enable volume control
Watch latest episodes and shows

Upcoming Webinars

The Benefits of Accelerating Your Application Modernization Journey With AWS
Thursday, September 21, 2023 - 1:00 pm EDT
Cloud Security Turbocharged: A Wild Ride of Innovation, Threats and Staying Ahead
Friday, September 22, 2023 - 11:00 am EDT
Infosys Zero Cost Mainframe Transformations
Monday, September 25, 2023 - 11:00 am EDT

GET THE TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK

Sponsored Content

JFrog’s swampUP 2023: Ready for Next 

September 1, 2023 | Natan Solomon

DevOps World: Time to Bring the Community Together Again

August 8, 2023 | Saskia Sawyerr

PlatformCon 2023: This Year’s Hottest Platform Engineering Event

May 30, 2023 | Karolina Junčytė

The Google Cloud DevOps Awards: Apply Now!

January 10, 2023 | Brenna Washington

Codenotary Extends Dynamic SBOM Reach to Serverless Computing Platforms

December 9, 2022 | Mike Vizard

Latest from DevOps.com

Nobl9 Unfurls Reliability Center for Managing SLOs
September 21, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Harness Launches Open Source Gitness Platform
September 21, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Documentation as Code: A Game Changer for DevOps Teams?
September 21, 2023 | Gilad David Maayan
Innersourcing Open Source Principles in the Enterprise
September 21, 2023 | Bill Doerrfeld
Survey Surfaces Major Observability Challenges
September 20, 2023 | Mike Vizard

TSTV Podcast

On-Demand Webinars

DevOps.com Webinar ReplaysDevOps.com Webinar Replays

Most Read on DevOps.com

CloudBees CEO: State of Software Development is a Disaster
September 14, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Why Enterprises Should Embrace Data-Driven Software Management
September 15, 2023 | Alex Circei
Summit Highlights Open Source Software Security Progress
September 14, 2023 | Mike Vizard
Should You Measure Developer Productivity?
September 18, 2023 | Bill Doerrfeld
DevOps is Making Gains on Mainframe Platforms
September 15, 2023 | Mike Vizard
  • Home
  • About DevOps.com
  • Meet our Authors
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Techstrong Group, Inc.

© 2023 ·Techstrong Group, Inc.All rights reserved.