DevOps - The Myth Buster
Well, DevOps is the new buzz. You know about DevOps and that's why you are here to read this post, curiously...! But, I'm here to tell what DevOps is NOT.
DevOps is not a Technology, it's a Methodology...!
DevOps more addresses the need to have a good handshake between the Development Team and IT Team. So DevOps is more a framework that creates a smooth interaction between various including Development & Operations.
Is it Agile OR DevOps?
Well, that's a absurd question. Agile goes hand-in-hand with DevOps. Fail Fast is the theme of DevOps and Agile. So, development releases build fast, realizes the results fast and fixes the issues fast. This means Agile & DevOps co-exist and are not choices. (Theoretically, you can have legacy Waterfall in DevOps, but that's like 1000 cc engine for bullock cart...!)
DevOps decreases production cost
I'm sorry, this is not the case necessarily. The teams should mature the practices of DevOps to get significant RoI. Initially, the cost actually increases, due to cultural shift into DevOps. Upon consistent practice, the first gain that is received is Business getting a lead in the market with quick deployment. The Time-To-Market (TTM) is the significant gain that comes first. Upon stabilizing the practices, you start seeing lesser effort for each deployments.
DevOps is more to do with IT
Yes, you are almost right. The crux of DevOps lies in Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Cloud Infrastructure apart from others. This could mean that IT plays a significant role in DevOps practices. But, this doesn't mean Development role is insignificant. Development teams needs to be Agile, develop secure code and automate almost all Tests.
Automation is not mandatory in DevOps
Absolutely wrong. To get best results of DevOps automation needs to start from Unit Testing. Automation needs to continue for automatic build upon checking in the unit tested code. This certified build needs to be tested through effective test automation and later deployed in production.
Should I get Certified for DevOps?
It really doesn't matter. DevOps is more a hands-on model where the devil is in the details. You need to have the right environment, right tools, right cloud infrastructure for successful DevOps rollout. If you are already hands-on, DevOps Certification can be and 'endorsement of the existent skill'. But, going a certification alone doesn't not help you at all.
DevOps is pretty new concept
Well, that's the last myth to be broken. Many disciplined organizations had already a good relationship with IT and was sailing smooth in deliveries. The DevOps medicine is for ensuring this understanding consistently and stop the blame game of 'It works here, I don't know why it does work there' stuff. I would like to give due credit @Gene Kim for his wonderful contribution in his business novel 'The Phoenix Project' (with co-authors) that really inspired many like me.
Good, simple explanation Ram. In a way, the wheel has turned full circle, one can say. Those exposed to the old EDP departments would not find this too new (but for the automation part, though). What was essentially a single EDP entity was broken down into Dev and Ops as complexity increased and went their separate ways. Now they are coming back - not very different from our films where brothers are separated at childhood meet up again in their Prime to take on the bad guys. Of course, things have also evolved much more today - with automation, daily builds and CI. Having said that, if you remove the labels and look at the essence of things, I still feel if we did traditional waterfall right, it would still meet the purpose. I know I could be rubbing the Agilists on the wrong side :-) Process QA folks also have to unlearn traditional QA practices and re-learn them for the current context.
Nice . But difficult to find resources.
Simple and very informative.
@Ramachandram....good post.
good reading