Yalla DevOps!
Years ago, before joining JFrog, I knew nothing about DevOps. Back then, the concept of DevOps in general was in its very early stages and one could find few functions here and there in companies that called themselves "DevOps engineer" or similar.
Today, it’s hard to find a company without DevOps functions and many claim to be "a DevOps company", as the "DevOps" buzz is sexy;-) and common.
Many of my friends in this LinkedIn network know what DevOps is all about, but some may still wonder what this buzz is all about so I'll try and explain it in short for those.
DevOps isn't a specific role or function, it's a culture, a relatively new concept that followed the good old agile methodology. As Wikipedia states : "DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality".
DevOps is all about connections; Development and operations teams can no longer work in silos. Whether you build, test or release, whether you're busy planning your software lifecycle or monitor it, keeping your code secure or watching your cloud expenses through the new FinOps function, you must work together - as a unified power if you wish to succeed!
While DevOps initial stages were focused mainly with software companies, we can see it gradually shifting also to the embedded world as software is the hardware "mind". With the growing development of "smart" things, smart homes, cars and many other devices around, we can no longer think of any service which will not require DevOps in one way or another.
But what's in it for me?:-) How can I take the lessons learned from this DevOps mindset? Is it only techy stuff for the ones that know how to code? I really don't think so.
Here are a few simple lessons learned from DevOps to anyone, anywhere:-)
- Collaboration - DevOps is breaking silos, not only between Development and Operations, but also between different tools and platforms; If you wish to practice DevOps, you can't have your solution or tool just as a standalone. The world belongs to those who connect & integrate. APIs, Microservices - it's all about making a connection.
- Automation - Agent Smith said it long before DevOps was here (to stay:-) - "Never send a man to do a machine's job". DevOps accelerates automation processes and automation processes are an essential part of DevOps processes. I spent much of my career in HR roles. One of the more challenging roles to find and retain were those that had to keep track of all the versions releases, use all kinds of version control systems and pray for the best that nothing will break apart with every new release. No one dreamed back then of the amount of releases we're facing these days and this couldn't be done without shifting from manual processes to automated ones. Trying to explain this to non-techy ones like me - imagine a world with no vacuum cleaner or mixer for baking:-). Automation doesn't take the jobs out of chefs' lives. It just makes them easier and smarter, allowing them to focus on inventing more creative dishes while the machines help them with the routine jobs, taking the "dust" out of the way...
- Quality First! - DevOps has a lot to do with testing; In today's world, where organizations produce software at an increasing rate, while adopting new architectures, platforms, and technologies, such as microservices, containers, hybrid and multi-cloud environments, there's lots of complications with managing the software release cycle. The need to watch the quality of a release on the fly, prevent builds from crashing and avoid sending low quality versions to production is one of the pains DevOps tools should and can solve. Getting back to the Chefs' experience, imagine a smart machine which could tell the chefs whether their dish came out well, or else, if by any chance it contained an out of date ingredient, help them know where are the dishes with this ingredients and throw them away before they get to the customers' hands (or god forbid in their body;-).
- Continuous improvement - Always Leap Forward! DevOps is all about getting better and better. Always leaping forward or as we say: "Imagine there's no version". Imagine a world where software is liquid, like water from the tap; you don't need to worry whether the water will flow or not, whether it's safe to drink or how long will it take to fill your glass. It's there, ready to use whenever you're thirsty:-)
By now, the techy ones that got to this part of my article may have spotted some items they would put differently or some missing pieces they would have added, but hey, if you got so far, let me just tell you why Yalla! DevOps is all you need to get back to meet your DevOps friends in person, listen to DevOps experts talk about kubernetes, a serverless world, microservices, CI/CD pipelines and many more and one super special panel which will emphasize how DevOps can and will accelerate our journey to space!
Want to join us? Feel free to use my personal frog code [email protected] and get NIS50 off. Can't wait to see you all there my friends.
Yalla, may this be a great new week!
