DevOps … and what?
While starting my studies on DevOps 101, I came across multiple drivers:
- A better experience for customers
- Gain efficiency
- Transparency between the people / teams performing build, test, release & operations
- A fast and frequent build & release process
- A superfast detect to correct process
- A robust process which is more secure
Almost all the literature available on the internet shows a Development engineer and a support engineer standing on either side of a wall which we want to break. But why? So that there is less friction between them and they work harmoniously together. So that issues are found & fixed faster. So that development and release go hand in hand. So that delays due to segregated manual activities are minimized.
Okay, but how? Agile framework talks about a self-sufficient team. For that to be truly possible, the team needs to be self-sufficient in terms of all the skills that are required to execute activities across build, test, release and operate phases warranting a relook at existing team structures. Cut the non-value add activities by using Lean principles. Add a layer of an automated CI/CD pipeline and you might have gained a more secure way of extraction and release of code & infrastructure across multiple environments along with an enhanced speed of delivery & deployment up till production environment. Toss this on a base of micro-services architecture which enables you to deploy small chunks of code/configuration and you have the perfect recipe for increased efficiency which can be used at scale.
What am i thinking?
- I often see discussions around how digitization is killing the job of a process analyst, well guess what - if you digitize without first leaning the existing process, you still get crap
- Monolithic architecture will only take you so far. Micro-services may just be the catalyst you need
- Simply automating your delivery pipeline might give you efficiencies but to get efficiencies at scale, a much larger cultural & mindset change is required
DevOps – Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Neither it’s a superman nor a silver bullet. It is a culture which builds on the principles of agile in order to lay down strong foundations of a highly resilient IT Organization. Multiple forces such as process improvement, automation, architecture, etc. will need to come together to make DevOps a reality and a success.
May the forces be with you!
Good read, Sayantan Debnath ! Biggest takeaway is "Culture". Move away from blame game and embrace culture of ownership. No one person can do all thing, but as a team we can move forward. Automate anything manual, trust your developers, Have the confidence to break your system and recreate it. More often than not I have seen "DevOps" proponents loose themselves in "Process". Empower and encourage your employees to use new tools and technologies. (Note: Need to be sure that you give your employee "Admin" rights to laptop and at least machine with better configuration than default "Dell" & Windows combo :) )
Nice article