DevOps on the Mainframe
I recently completed an engagement to develop the Strategy, Roadmap and Implementation Plan for a DevOps methodology for a highly-regulated, old-school, brick and mortar organization. Their ask was for me to develop a DevOps methodology on a predominantly IBM-centric stack. The scope of my DevOps strategy had to include application development processes on the mainframe, which was at the heart of the organization's mission-critical technology.
In his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Nobel Memorial Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote that we have "... a puzzling limitation of our mind: our excessive confidence in what we believe we know and our apparent inability to acknowledge the full extent of our ignorance." and that our "overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsight".
I fell into the trap of excessive confidence (read: ignorance) fueled by my previous (but limited) DevOps experience. At the start of this consulting engagement, I was 100% sure that I. Could Not. Implement DevOps. On the mainframe.
As I investigated this on a deeper level, I realized that my DevOps strategy for the organization will be incomplete without the mainframe. The organization’s Product releases always included mainframe features/code. In addition to common practices of code version control, test automation, static code analysis, artifact repositories, release automation, a principal tenet of DevOps is breaking down the silos in the organization. If I leave the mainframe off the strategy, I will be continuing the practice of silo-ing mainframe development and operations instead of mainstreaming them into the organization's DevOps practice. Delivering a DevOps strategy without including the mainframe is tantamount to a Pyrrhic victory.
As I retrospect on this engagement, I am glad that I challenged my comfort zone and resisted the temptation of hindsight. This engagement has opened my mind to the scope and possibilities of DevOps and has definitely enhanced my DevOps journey. I have delivered the strategy, roadmap and implementation plan for DevOps for the mainframe. My approach - learning from other enterprises who have gone before us, customizing it for the organization's context and refining it based on feedback from the organization's mainframe gurus.
