We are today announcing the 2017 DevOps Dozen finalists. When I first came up with the idea of the DevOps Dozen 3 years ago, I hoped that one day it would grow into an award that really did recognize the best of the best in the maturing DevOps space. In its third year, I am happy to report that the DevOps Dozen has achieved its mission. This year our categories, the votes, the process and the judges are all aligned to bring you what we think is the strongest DevOps Dozen finalists ever.

We had to go through thousands of votes, many of them write-ins to pick out the six finalists in each category. It was not an easy task as we couldn’t automate it, we had to do it by hand. We opened nominations back in early October. Many thanks to the team here at staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud for going through them all. We have notified the finalists in each category and they are submitting information which we will pass onto our panel of judges, who will pick the winner in each of the 12 categories (it is the DevOps DOZEN). We will announce the winners in early January, so stay tuned.

Step 1 of 7

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Which of the following best describes how you currently monitor and manage systems across your hybrid cloud environment?(Required)

Multiple separate tools for different environments

Multiple separate tools for different monitoring and management functions

Single consolidated dashboard

Custom built monitoring and management solution

No full monitoring and management solution

Don’t know

How valuable would it be for your monitoring and management solution to incorporate predictive analytics to help you identify and address system issues that are critical and not waste time or effort working through all the data and “noise” that is not critical?(Required)

Extremely valuable

Moderately valuable

Somewhat valuable

Slightly valuable

Not valuable

How do you most typically address potential system issues BEFORE they impact your operations?(Required)

Automated workflows and playbooks to remediate potential issues as soon as they are detected

An orchestrated response process that leverages automation, AI, and human expertise to rapidly respond to potential issues

Advanced monitoring tools such as predictive analytics and anomaly detection to proactively identify and address potential issues

Respond to issues as they arise, using manual processes and troubleshooting techniques

A combination of automated remediation, orchestrated response, and/or proactive monitoring to address potential system issues

Don’t know

Other

What methods does your organization use to control and monitor cloud/IT spending?(Required)

Centralized procurement processes

Pre-approved budget thresholds

Automated cost monitoring tools

Department-level spending controls

Regular cost audits and reviews

Cloud cost optimization platform

Approval workflows for resource provisioning

Native financial operations tools provided by the cloud provider

No formal controls in place

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

Which methods do you rely on most to detect security vulnerabilities in your systems?(Required)

Automated scanning tools

Manual assessments

Vendor notifications

Threat modeling (for early detection)

None of these

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

What are the TWO most common ways you prioritize vulnerabilities to address within your environment?(Required)

Based on potential impact

Based on exploitability

Regulatory compliance requirements

Based on CVSS scores

Risk-based analysis of multiple factors

First-in-first-out approach

No formal prioritization process

Don’t know

How do you typically handle system updates and security patches?(Required)

Automated updates and patches

Manually review and apply updates and patches on a regular schedule

A combination of automation and manual review

Apply updates and patches on an as-needed basis.

Outsourced update and patch management

No defined process

Don’t know

Other

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Before I give you the lists of finalists though, a quick thank you to our panel of judges who will now pick the winners. George Hulme, Ericka Chickowski, Jayne Groll, Helen Beal and Rob Stroud, along with myself will now have the tough job of picking among the best group of finalists we have ever seen. BTW, you can see a much better version of this finalist list by jumping over to the DevOps Dozen site.

Here are your finalists:

Category 1 – Best DevOps Open Source Project

1. Jenkins
2. Cloud Foundry
3. Taurus
4. Artifactory
5. Open Stack
6. Docker

Category 2 – Best DevOps Commercial Solution

1. CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise
2. IBM Cloud Garage
3. CA Automic Release Automation
4. Datical
5. XebiaLabs DevOps Platform
6. Electric Cloud Electric Flow

Category 3 – Best DevOps Solution Provider Exec

1. Sacha Labourey/Kohsuke Kawaguchi
2. Steve Robinson
3. Jeff Scheaffer
4. Jennifer Tejada
5. Rachel Reinitz
6. Todd DeLaughter
7. Yoav Landmen

Category 4 – Best DevOps Solution Provider

1. CA Technologies
2. CollabNet
3. IBM
4. PagerDuty
5. Electric Cloud
6. JFrog

Category 5 – Most Innovative DevOps Solution of the Year

1. CA Continuous Delivery Director
2. CloudBees DevOptics
3. Chef Habitat
4. IBM DevOps Insights
5. Electric Cloud DevOps Insight
6. Tricentis Tosca

Category 6 – Top DevOps Evangelist

1. Brian Dawson, CloudBees
2. Sanjeev Sharma, IBM
3. Aruna Ravichandran, CA Technologies
4. Robert Reeves, Datical
5. Baruch Sadogursky, JFrog
6. Derek Weeks, Sonatype

Category 7 – Best DevOps Transformation

1. NBC Universal
2. Lincoln Financial Group
3. Capital One
4. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
5. Westpac New Zealand

Category 8 – DevOps Transformation Leader

1. Brock Beatty, Capital One
2. John Comas, NBC Universal
3. Dawie Olivier, Westpac
4. Alice Raia, Kaiser Permanente
5. Paula Thrasher, CSRA Inc.
6. Pauly Comtois, Hearst Business Media

Category 9 – Best New DevOps Solution Company

1. ShiftLeft
2. Harness
3. LightStep
4. AppOrbit
5. Heptio
6. nClouds

Category 10 – Best DevOps Book/ebook

1. A Seat at the Table, Mark Schwartz
2. DevOps Adoption Playbook, Sanjeev Sharma
3. DevOps for Digital Leaders, Aruna Ravichandran,‎ Kieran Taylor,‎ Peter Waterhouse
4. Starting at Scaling DevOps in the Enterprise, Gary Gruver, Jez Humble (Foreword)
5. The Science Behind DevOps, Nichole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
6. Making Work Visible, Dominica Degrandis

Category 11 – Best DevOps Presentation

1. Next Generation of Continuous Delivery Containers, Robert Stroud, Eric Minick
2. The 10 Commandments of Continuous Delivery, Viktor Farcic
3. Is Your Testing a Trick or Treat?  The New Paradigm of Testing in a DevOps World, Adam Auerbach 
4. DevOps: The New Reality for Enterprise Transformation, Angel Diaz, Gene Kim, John Comas, David Lindquist, CJ Paul
5. What We Learned from the 2016 State of DevOps Report – Nicole Forsgren and Jez Humble, RSA DevSecOps
6. What Legacy government organizations need to advance the state of DevOps, Suzette Johnson and Robin Yeman

Category 12 – Best staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud Article

1. Why DevOps Requires a new operating model, Mustafa Kapadia
2. Continuous Testing: Solving the Biggest Bottle Neck, Aruna Ravichandran
3. Get the Full DevOps Picture with the CD Map, Scott Wilson
4. Should You Go Serverless, the pros and cons, Asaf Yigal
5. 7 Best practices for continuous delivery success, Yani Yehuda
6. Continuous Integration vs. Delivery vs. Deployment: What’s the Difference? ,Chris Tozzi

— Alan Shimel