The DevOps Disruption

Welcome to the application economy, where organizations need to roll out apps with the shortest possible lead time. How does one do it? The answer lies in DevOps

DevOps. This is the hottest tech term in town now. Enterprise computing is at the center of a major disruption and a combination of forces are ushering in significant changes and separating leaders from laggards. The leaders obviously are the early movers of tech and have already started reaping in the harvest. In the past we have seen major disruptions like cloud to big data – that has opened up a new premise in solving business problems by using a new style of IT.

Why DevOps? 

Today it’s an ‘apps’ centric world. Enterprise IT organizations need to build elastic and agile IT infrastructure so that they can satisfy the demanding stakeholder SLAs- that is, enabling IT to achieve business objectives and positively impact organizational productivity and higher bottom-line.

Reflecting on this a Forrester Research on DevOps said, “ Organizations have for years sought a means of more quickly delivering business value in the form of working software. Inspired by innovations in agile software development and the application of the lean principles of continuous improvement, development and operations have been chipping away the obstacles that have prevented faster delivery. Joining together, the movement, called DevOps has been gaining momentum and achieving impressive results.”

Industry experts aver that the walls between development, operations, and the business are coming down, ushering in a new age of collaboration that, in leading organizations, is already proving itself in delivering real business value faster and more frequently.

DevOps is not a technology per se. It’s a combination of best processes, policies and technologies that makes for agile parallel development that enables high-quality software delivery. As some analysts like Gartner puts it, “One specific focus of DevOps for some IT organizations is the shift towards configuration as code. In this context, DevOps borrows from the fact that as developers’ code applications with business logic, the infrastructure can be coded via configuration logic or directives.”

 Experts say that DevOps helps build manageable, reliable, scalable apps faster and deploy to production with less effort and fewer errors. At the same time, it assures good business user and customer experience. DevOps makes for shared responsibilities, metrics, and goals that are business-driven. Moreover, it enables us to capture and convert tribal knowledge, constant collaboration, and feedback. And the best part is one can learn from failure, trust in each other, technology and process.”

Analysts like Forrester say that DevOps concisely captures an organizational philosophy already employed. DevOps is not so much a destination- it’s a journey, a kind of fitness program that can help you transform your business into a world-class competitor. Like any fitness program, it will be difficult and, at times, painful. The end result, however, is a lean, nimble, and muscular technology management organization that will allow your business to vanquish its foes.”

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

DevOps is not a technology. It’s a practice. So a lot of factors and actors need to come together to make a value chain. It’s a symphony orchestra, where each member of the ensemble has a specific role to play. And it’s easier said than done and it has many challenges.

 Dev and Ops often sit on opposing sides of a great divide, separated by a gulf of misunderstanding. Without good interpersonal harmony, your business cannot adapt to the changes in the competitive landscape. As long as these stereotypes continue to exist, they will remain a barrier that will prevent you from achieving greatness, avers an insight from Forrester.

The reality is that neither Dev nor Ops really understands what the other does, and what they don’t understand, they can’t respect.  Therefore, your first step as a leader is to broker some ‘relationship counseling’. Just getting Dev and Ops talking can be a good start, but it’s not going to be pleasant, at least at first. The best place to start is with a shared mission. Today, Dev is rewarded for delivering code into testing environments, while Ops is rewarded for keeping apps running with acceptable performance and security.

Road Ahead

The road to DevOps has already begun for some and many others will be a part of it this year. Enterprises are recognizing that DevOps will enable them to develop faster, better quality applications, and more importantly, better align with their overall business objectives.  

The Need for DevOps 

§  Ushers in more business value and better alignment of IT

§  Makes software development collaborative and breaks down silos

§  Brings in the ability to address the demands of Application Economy

§  Ushers in an elastic and agile software-enabled IT infrastructure