Two Ways DevOps Unlocks the True Potential of Agile
In a recent post on InformationWeek, Erik Weber, a professional Scrum trainer and Agile expert, explores four signs that you’re doing Agile development wrong. Upon finishing the article, I was reminded that Agile in theory is often very different from Agile in practice, and when that gap exists within IT, it can have massive consequences […]
Your End Users Want Everything: Here’s How to Give it to Them
In today’s application-centric business environment, the end user is king. Whether we’re talking about being first to market with the next big thing or adding new capabilities and features to an existing application, so much of our current development time, resources and energy is spent on trying to meet the needs of end users. It’s […]
Deputizing Everyone for Security – Building Agile Assurance
Those of us highly focused on the delivery pipeline of DevOps will wonder why we should include the security guy to the party. After all, aren’t they just going to slow down the process and make it harder to deliver good features to end customers? My prior post about introducing SecDevOps by example was not […]
Waterfall and Agile, the effect of automation and continuous integration
Agile’s A Silly Idea? I was a young developer working at a large enterprise when I first heard about some of the principles that later became part of the Agile process back in the mid- to late-90s. I was skeptical about what I heard, to say the least. After all, what we today call waterfall […]
A Winning DevOps Approach for Established Enterprises: Pace-layered
Does your bank offer the ability to deposit a check by taking its picture with your smartphone? When that feature debuted a few years back, I remember thinking it was interesting and convenient enough that if my bank didn’t offer it soon, I’d be willing to switch to one that did. I bring this example […]
No DevOps Roadmap? No Problem.
I’m a huge fan of The Phoenix Project and I’m honored to count Gene Kim both as one of my professional inspirations and also as a personal friend. There is, however, a dangerous precipice inside of the Phoenix Project that, if misunderstood, could cause many DevOps practitioners and enterprise IT shops a daunting problem in […]
DevOps Can Be Your Fountain of Youth
There is a different, almost magical dynamic, at a startup that seems to fade away over time as companies establish themselves. One of the benefits of DevOps, though, is that it creates an environment where that startup magic can continue to thrive. DevOps is like a fountain of youth that lets corporations continue to act […]
Don’t Let the (April Fools Day) Joke Be on You
As much as seasonal increases in demand for on-line resources are discussed, the one day that’s often overlooked is April Fools Day. It’s the day the Internet loses its mind and your best bet is take everything not just with a grain of salt, but with the entire shaker. The use of April Fools’ Day […]
My Journey to the Land of DevOps
Welcome to my first installment in a series where I talk about my long transition as an engineer, first from a very traditional waterfall development methodology into a more Agile process, and finally into a true DevOps organization at my current gig at JumpCloud. Who Am I? First, a little background on me. I’m (almost) […]
DevOps Adoption – Startups
This is part 1 of a 2 part article DevOps is somewhat unique in that it has applications to both large enterprises and to startups. The way DevOps is adopted in startups is incredibly different than how it happens in large organizations. The profile of how DevOps is adopted in each of these cases is the […]
What “Programmable” Means
One of the most often used words these days to describe emerging architectures and technology is (drum roll please) “programmable.” Now, from my used-to-be-a-developer-and-architect-turned-infrastructure-geek perspective, I know what that means. It means I get to write code. But to what purpose that code is put to is a question that’s rarely answered. So today we’re […]
Can you appreciate DevOps, if you can’t exactly say what it is?
I recently had a conversation with some SOX IT auditors and was asked what I meant when I said we were a DevOps shop. I stumbled a little, torn somewhere between an overly simplistic answer and a desire to baptize the unholy. I started by talking about collaboration between the developers and the admins. Mentioning […]
Ops is dead, long live DevOps
Yes, that’s a bold statement, but if the vibe at the recent AWS re:Invent conference was any indication there are a number of methodologies, technologies, and companies working to make that a reality. This article isn’t focused on whether this is a good or bad thing (my personal belief is that ops will always be […]
Improving Communication Through Autotmation
One of the great traits of an organization that adopts DevOps principles or even just an Agile methodology is that everything, and I mean everything, is more dynamic. While each company will have a different level of fluidity in their processes, Clip Interactive’s source control and deployment processes are very fluid. As such, we attempt […]
The Fourth Seat at the IT Service Velocity Table
Agile. Devops. SDN. Development. Operations. Network. Notice anything missing? How about security? On the one hand, that could be because we’ve finally managed to realize that security is an integral part of every aspect of IT and it’s by default embraced by the other three groups already. I’ll pause while you stop laughing and catch […]