API Security in DevOps: Are We Too Comfortable?
Postman performed its annual survey of developers, and as this survey and many other surveys have shown, developers are generally comfortable with the level of API security that their organization has implemented. This has been a consistent trend, with most developers being comfortable that they are protected. The problem is most organizations also put API […]
Synack: DevSecOps Being Accelerated by Cultural Shifts
The 2020 State of Compliance and Security Testing Report from cybersecurity testing platform vendor Synack claims that some of the world’s largest organizations are encountering a significant cultural shift within their development teams, and that bodes well for those seeking to build DevSecOps teams. For the report, Synack surveyed leaders from more than 300 organizations […]
DevOps: Get the Basics Right to Avoid Costly Mistakes
It is a truth of both agile and DevOps that speed is of the essence. This is a relative statement—some apps/portfolios/orgs envision speed completely differently than others—but if you are releasing more frequently than you were in the past, thanks to DevOps, that’s kind of the point. Yet, we see a whole selection of things […]
How Combining DevOps and Agile Can Ease Black Friday Pressure
Every year, seasonal peaks such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring a higher volume and faster pace of work, as well as a considerable amount of pressure. This comes with a number of challenges, including managing traffic influx, ensuring top-notch digital experience, rebuilding catalog infrastructure and carrying out load and performance testing. Development teams […]
An Embarrassment of Riches
History says people rarely appreciate what they have in the heat of the moment. Our highly connected and high-speed world is no exception to this rule. The things that frustrate us are in our faces, while the things that make nearly everything better/safer/faster are taken for granted. That is every bit as true in IT […]
Quality Engineering Has DevOps and Agile in the Driving Seat
As opposed to the traditional software development lifecycle (aka waterfall), today’s Agile and DevOps-based software development process is more outcome-oriented. The unrelenting pace of the changing market landscape has made the hybrid, Agile plus DevOps way of software development absolutely critical in addressing customer demands and staying competitive. The focus on Agile and DevOps is […]
Why COBOL Still Matters After 60 Years
In the world of DevOps, the Agile Manifesto and countless other application delivery frameworks, one has to wonder how an anachronism such as the programming language COBOL (common business-oriented language) has managed to remain relevant. After all, COBOL has its roots back in the 1940s, and was built upon Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s work on […]
Principles Systems and Tools – What Shingo Can Teach Us About DevOps
In my last post, The Power of a Game: What I Learned from Facilitating the Phoenix Project Simulation, we explored how DevOps and Agile practices are built on underlying Lean principles that go back decades to a time before the Toyota Production System. When you look into the history of Lean, it is almost impossible […]
Why Did DevOps Become So Popular? 3 Theories
DevOps has now been a thing for a solid decade. As we look back at the history of DevOps, it’s worth asking: Where did DevOps come from, and why did it take off when it did? In honor of the 10-year anniversary of DevOps, I’d like to explore these questions. A Brief History of DevOps […]
Digital Transformation Drives C-Suite Discord
In the sport of rowing, each crew member has to row in synchrony or the boat risks undesired turns and even potential tipping. It takes practice, communication and discipline for each crew member to raise their oar to the appropriate height and apply the appropriate power. Obviously, those crews who work best together are more […]
Value Stream Optimization: Putting Business in the Driver’s Seat
How value stream can be a major driver of DevOps success in today’s software-only world Even as DevOps reaches a pinnacle in acceptance (as of 2018, only three percent of firms had not adopted DevOps and had no plans to do so), many organizations are still struggling to get high-quality software out the door. DevOps […]
Are Your Development Processes Truly Agile?
Many organizations are making a move to agile-powered environments, but agile development is more than a name. How do you determine if your organization is truly agile? The evaluation starts with the Agile Manifesto. If you’re following the principles laid out in the manifesto, that’s a good sign that you’re on an agile journey. For […]
5 DevOps Terms That We All Use, Yet No One Can Define
I’m all for DevOps. Sometimes, however, I have a hard time talking about DevOps. The reason is because many of the key terms related to DevOps lack clear and precise definitions. Let me explain … DevOps is such a big deal that it has bred its very own lexicon. Search Google for “DevOps terms,” and […]
Agile vs. ITIL: Two Divergent Paths to DevOps?
Truth be told, there are dozens of different frameworks in existence and all have their unique perspectives on how a project is managed and executed. Frameworks such as Agile, ITIL, lean, cobit, six sigma and many others were built on an ideology of following a path defined by best practices. With DevOps, two of those […]
Will ITIL V4 Bring Order to a DevOps World?
It is difficult to dispute the importance that the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) approach has had on the world of ITSM (IT service management). After all, the best practices established by ITIL V3 have come to be the accepted way ITSM providers conduct business—so much so that many other IT processes have come to […]
CXOs Overestimating DevOps and Continuous Testing Maturity
More work is needed to achieve continuous testing, Forrester report shows Forrester recently completed an interesting new research project exploring what separates DevOps leaders from DevOps laggards. After analyzing data collected from 603 global enterprise respondents responsible for their firms’ DevOps strategies, Forrester learned that firms with the most mature DevOps practices do several key […]
Is Your Organization ‘Fit for the Future’?
Takeaways from a recent conference suggest more work is needed in DevOps adoption among organizations This was a question explored by CIO Platform Nederland and the DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA) in a recent event I attended, hosted by Transavia. Many organizations have already embarked or are about to embark upon Agile transformation initiatives, driven […]
DevOps Hiring: What Do You Need?
IT has long had a problem with hiring. I’m not certain where it started; most of us blame HR, and that’s probably incorrect, but gives us someone to blame. It’s that we post jobs with insane requirements. Sometimes this is done to keep the applicant pool down, but most of the time it is a […]
DevOps and Agile: Your New Year’s Resolution
Don’t apply Agile principles to DevOps. That’s not how it works. We in the west often celebrate the new year with a promise to do more or less of something in the coming year. While these promises are often broken, they can occasionally be transformational. And it’s time your organization had a transformational one: More […]
Common Hidden Dependencies and How to Uncover Them
It’s no secret that a truly Agile approach minimizes the risk organizations assume with waterfall or other traditional project management methods, by letting teams iterate and inspect and adapt as they go. But many companies lack clear visibility into real-time dependencies at the team level—even with daily standups, iteration and release planning, and a regular […]
Boxes vs. Services: The Infrastructure Equation
Infrastructure is changing as more services replace the need for hardware-based architectures There has been a lot of change in the last few years, and that change shows no sign of slowing down. I’m one of those people who likes to know they could work offline if needed, yet in this day and age if […]
Where is the Next Generation of Mainframe Talent?
Are we potentially facing a shortage of mainframe talent? “Three of us set up this tool in 1989. One is retired, and the other person is somewhere in heaven!” That was the remark of Alf (name changed), the senior mainframe architect at a large European enterprise, as he pointed toward the ceiling of the meeting […]
Empower Agile Teams with a ‘Bell Curve’ Approach
There’s no feeling better than ending a project on a high—until you notice the mountain of work looming ahead for your next project. At those times, it may seem hard to start grinding all over again. The struggles of adjusting to new teammates or a new client can be daunting. When a new project kicks […]