‘DevOps is a Lifestyle, Not a Title’
“DevOps is a lifestyle, not a title.” This is a quote from Ron Melanson, of Amazon, and I hope he won’t mind me sharing it here. It struck a chord with me, and this blog explains why. I have spoken about DevOps on a few occasions. Some audiences are not from a development background, so […]
Embracing a DevOps Culture, Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the fact that more organizations are looking to embrace the “DevOps culture.” However, unlike ITIL, implementing DevOps into an organization does not happen overnight. DevOps is more a philosophy than a procedure, and choosing the right leadership team is as important as choosing the right tools. In […]
Balance: The Key to Successful DevOps
In the realm of IT buzzwords, DevOps is in a league of its own. The pervasiveness of the word is matched only by the variety of its definitions. Over time, much like the parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant, it has slowly taken shape out of the void, albeit in a backwards fashion. […]
Does the Future of DevOps Lie in NoOps?
Why DevOps is more a bi-directional rather than a simple top-down approach DevOps is one of those buzzwords that nearly everyone wants to discuss these days. However, it often is interpreted as an extension of Development’s influence to the detriment of Operations teams. So much has changed in the past few years that it is […]
The New Age of “Operations” in a DevOps Enterprise
My encounters with commercial clients in the DevOps space have been exciting, curious, political, and challenging. What most don’t realize is that DevOps is not just about infusing tool automation into a delivery pipeline, but it also has to do with re-mobilizing and challenging the status quo when it comes to “who does what”. As […]
The DevOps Equation: Agility + Empathy = Quality
I had the chance to catch up with Jeff Sussna (@JeffSussna), founder and principal of Ingineering.IT, ahead of his keynote address on continuous design, scheduled for DevOps Days Atlanta, April 26-27. He discussed the importance of designing for service, responding to the unexpected, and the importance of building empathy across teams. Derek Weeks (@weekstweets): Today I’m […]
Embracing a DevOps Culture, Part 1
DevOps is popular right now. So it should come as no surprise that organizations across all industries are eager to embrace the “DevOps culture.” However, unlike ITIL, implementing DevOps into an organization does not happen overnight. Compared to companies such as Netflix or Amazon, most organizations do not have thousands of application deployments per day. […]
An Engineering Think Tank to Change the World
In his famous book “Mythical Man Month,” Fred Brooks says, “Techniques proven and routine in other engineering disciplines are considered radical innovations in software engineering.” While being very fond of engineering on the big scale, such as building millions of high-end and yet individually configured cars or double-deck aircraft or space ships, for example, I […]
The Difference Between DevOps and Anarchy
DevOps is about being more efficient. It’s about breaking down silos and removing traditional business obstacles that get in the way of just getting things done. It’s about enabling teams and individuals to collaborate more seamlessly. None of that, however, means that DevOps is about turning your IT into some sort of “Wild West” anarchy, […]
Will Microservices Make the ‘Ops’ in ‘DevOps’ Obsolete?
DevOps is a portmanteau of “developers” and “operations.” The concept of DevOps is about shifting IT culture in a way that enables developers and operations to work together more seamlessly. As more and more elements of DevOps become automated and leverage microservices such as container platforms, though, the operations side of that equation plays a […]
Boston DevOps Leader Pete Cheslock Talks Accomplishments
Pete Cheslock began his leadership role in DevOps in 2009 at cloud-based email archiving company Sonian. The company was founded by friends and former colleagues of his, who called Cheslock for help when they got funding for the Sonian venture. He filled in wherever they needed him—as did everyone else in the first few years […]
The Whole Nine Yards with DevOps and Agile Operations
Growing up as a boy in Manchester, UK, football (ok, soccer to US readers) was everything to me. I vividly remember being herded into the stadium stands on cold rainy Saturday afternoons to watch my team (#MCFC) win, draw or lose. Back then, football was for the die-hards – no frills or fancy tech, just […]
Beyond the Darkness of Shadow IT
The concept of consumerization of IT, Bring Your Own Everything (BYOx) and self-service technologies has amplified the amount of ‘Shadow IT’ in development shops. Developers can procure, setup, and start using new components, and developer tools in hours. This is a trend that lurks in the dark. C-suite executives can either ban the trend altogether […]
Service virtualization – The hows and the whys.
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. You are on an island, smelling the iodine coming from the sea, the sun is gently caressing your cheeks and you are sipping on a cocktail in the middle of the afternoon. Your phone is off, in a place you forgot and you do not have direct […]
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 […]
Expanding DevOps Beyond Dev and Ops
I’ve been involved in software delivery for longer than I care to admit, and since DevOps has come onto the scene I’ve witnessed the deconstruction of silos that were once actively built to contain separate projects and team functions. Central to this deconstruction is collaboration between Dev and Ops, ushering in new innovation paradigms. What’s […]
Automation, Operations, DevOps – What We Thought Was Missing
Stackstorm is a new company focused on automation, operations and DevOps. It’s co-founder and CEO Evan Powell has been keeping a running journal as the company made ready to emerge from stealth. Over the next few days we will share Powell’s thoughts and experiences as a new DevOps company comes to market. Over the next […]
Meet Infrastructure as Code
Maybe you have already heard the terms “Programmable Infrastructure” and “Infrastructure as code”. But even if you have not, if you are interested in DevOps it’s something you need to know. Most new lingo causes me to roll my eyes. But in this case, it’s not just new lingo, it’s an entirely new concept. Besides making […]
An outage war room primer
One aspect of the DevOps movement I’ve seen adopted at numerous companies is the idea that everyone supports their products by being on-call for any incidents that occur in the production environment. This responsibility often leads to participation in the outage war room. For those of you who may be new to this experience, I’m […]