Webinar: Security & DevOps in 2015
The intersection of Security and DevOps. What does 2015 hold in store? Organizations are under increasing pressure to do more, faster. But cybersecurity breaches by criminals, hacktivists and state sponsored actors have cast a shadow over large portions of our IT infrastructure. How can security and DevOps in tandem make us safer while allowing us to […]
Turn IT into a Service Catalog
Unless you live under a rock in the world of cloud computing, you’re probably aware of a growing generational gap between public clouds and enterprise IT. Public clouds versus enterprise IT Consider the size of budgets public cloud companies invest in R&D. The budgets are astronomically huge when you compare to the budget of a […]
Enter at your own risk: DevOps isn’t for everybody
There’s always a sexy new tech buzzword flying around, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that if a concept or technology is hot you need to hurry up and jump on board so you don’t miss anything. DevOps is hot, and seems to be almost ubiquitous these days. But that doesn’t […]
Awkward questions for those getting started with automation
This blog asking awkward questions for folks jumping on the microservices bandwagon was enlightening from the perspective that many of the same questions are applicable to operations as they begin to tackle operationalizing all the things in an application lifecycle. For example: “What is your deployable unit?” Great question, isn’t it? What is your deployable […]
Top Skills for Enterprise DevOps
There is one question I hear almost every time I talk with my large enterprise customers about DevOps: What skills do my people need to be successful with DevOps? Talk of DevOps almost immediately focuses on culture – like having empathy for fellow workers, being flexible and adaptable, seeking continuous improvement, building relationships, etc. However, […]
Tips to change culture (at least in your team).
DevOps is all about automation, enhancing the Application Lifecycle Management and culture change. In the last few years there have been tons of conferences and articles about the benefits of a cultural change on a project, but I have yet to read a paper about how to actually change culture. How do you manage to […]
You Might Already be Doing DevOps in the Software-Defined Data Center
I was out reading the Internet and came across a report from EMA (Enterprise Management Associates) regarding the state of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) in 2014. After perusing the data and highlights, I was surprised (and yet should not have been) to find so much DevOps-related content and concepts within. Neither should I have […]
DevOps Sometimes Means Kill It Before Fixing It
The public attention for DevOps is having a very positive effect on many areas of IT with regard to improving their ability to deliver for the business. Yet, I see little attention being paid to an integral part of this desire to change, which is to assess and baseline the current approach and then strategically […]
DevOps: What It is and How to Cook It
What is DevOps? DevOps is a funny concept.I have spent the last few months trying to find an accurate explanation of what it is, reading books, articles and participating in discussions which led me to the following personal definition: DevOps is a set of processes which aims to enhance the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) of […]
SQL vs. NoSQL – Unsettled Debate & DevOps Pitfalls
Big Data, a relatively new phenomenon driving the industry hype-cycle is a mainstay in the database business. IT companies are convinced over the endless value proposition of the operational insight that comes with leveraging Big Data ( or Big Small Data ), so much so that it’s easy to overlook its impact on traditional database […]
The Conundrum of Adopting DevOps within Organizational Constraints
I wish I had a dollar for each time I’ve now heard, “we’re adopting DevOps, but we have to operate within the constraints of what the business is ready to accept.” Basically, this is becoming the battle cry of many enterprise IT professionals that are DevOps believers, but are stuck with the limitations of operating […]
Detours Ahead: Overcoming DevOps Challenges
Saying that you’re interested in DevOps is another way of saying you’re interested in change. That’s what DevOps promises any organization. No matter the problems a company is trying to solve or the goals it’s trying to reach, DevOps depends on a willingness to embrace some big changes. Sure, it can help you streamline software […]
Nationwide banks on DevOps to drive towards Continuous Delivery
The Financial Services industry is fast moving, highly regulated and customer-centric. The general perception in our industry is that any change in processes implies risk and delay, neither of which we can afford. But at the same time, we are faced by the mammoth task of needing to continually introduce new products and services to […]
Time-Sharing to Unicorns: The DevOps Problem Facing Enterprise IT
How did we in Enterprise IT get to this point? There’s a lot of talking and writing about the value of adopting DevOps but very little analyzing the problem domain we’re trying to correct. There are some schools that will say we can move forward without looking back, but I believe a key element of […]
Waterfall to Agile to DevOps: The State of Stagnant Evolution
DevOps is all the rage. The hot IT buzzword intended to heal the expanding divide between development and IT operations is being used to sell a range of services and solutions to struggling development shops and enterprises, even though DevOps can’t be sold – it’s a cultural shift that nurtures under a strong leadership. Prior […]
The DevOps Scorecard
Mid-last year our team switched from doing Agile to doing DevOps. As we forayed into the journey trying to learn about DevOps and practice it at the same time, a lot of questions arose in the team. How was this different from agile and most importantly How were we going to be successful? That’s when we […]
SDN has a lot to offer to DevOps
When discussing DevOps it’s natural to focus the attention on the one operations team that focuses on application infrastructure. But when you start digging in to DevOps and its applicability to all four operations groups you’ll find that technological shifts in the network – like software-defined networks (SDN) – are just as important to the overall […]
Survey: DevOps gaining mainstream traction in IT today
New survey results released last week shows just how thoroughly DevOps has captured the mindshare of enterprises. Commissioned by Rackspace, the global Vanson Bourne survey showed that more than three-quarters of IT decision-makers are now familiar with the term DevOps and well over half of them have already implemented DevOps practices to some degree or […]
Microsoft determined not to get left behind by DevOps
Microsoft is a massive company—a behemoth with a lot of inertia, and a lot of bureaucracy in place that make it difficult to adapt quickly. Under Satya Nadella, however, Microsoft is striving to re-invent itself, and—to the extent that it is possible—become more agile. For evidence of Microsoft’s new philosophy, look at how Microsoft is […]
Acorns Turns Sluggish FiServ on its Head with DevOps
Modern investment tools are popping up all over the place. Not only are they shifting the power from large institutions to the consumer, they are applying modern technology to a red-tape laden world. You can put FiServ technology in one of two categories: older institutions forced to build modern applications to compete, and financial techies […]
Cloud-Based Documentation at the Speed of DevOps
Welcome back to this (semi-)regular column where I attempt to answer questions about DevOps, especially in larger enterprises. This time I address a vexing issue facing many large enterprises – how to make sure downstream processes move as fast as development and operations: Q. In my enterprise we are getting faster at releasing code, but […]
Mobility Means Enterprises Need to Get Lean with DevOps
When people say “mobile” most folks think “devices.” Phones. Tablets. Phablets. Smart things. Wearables. But what we really ought to be talking about in most cases is apps. A McKinsey & Company survey noted, “When we recently surveyed 250 CIOs on their mobility strategies, 56 percent reported strong demand from employees to support a wide […]
The DevOps Culture Cocktail
As I have written in previous posts, I believe that IT has accumulated decades of cultural debt that is now due. We are a young industry that grew up in silo neighborhoods, each with it’s proprietary practices, language and population of like-skilled specialists. Left unchecked, the resulting “framework culture” contributed to IT’s cultural debt and […]