At the heart of many DevOps initiatives is an automation server based on open-source Jenkins software developed by CloudBees. At the recent Jenkins World 2017 conference, CloudBees showed that Jenkins is now becoming the foundational element through which DevOps teams can now manage a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) process end to end. New additions to […]
Differentiating Between CI Pipelines and DevOps Assembly Lines
“What’s in a name?” wrote the greatest Bard who ever lived. All I can say is, he lived in simpler times, when DevOps and the confusing world of continuous integration (CI), continuous deployment (CD), CI/CD, the other CD, application release automation (ARA), pipelines, assembly lines, etc., didn’t exist. The biggest challenge today is that vendors […]
XebiaLabs Shows Off ARA, More at Jenkins World
In this third spotlight on companies attending Jenkns World, another worth checking out came to mind, so I am taking a look at what XebiaLabs intends to do while there. XebiaLabs is one of the leading application release automation (ARA) vendors, and has a long history of working with Jenkins, so it’s a little more […]
Don’t Underestimate the Work
It is relatively common in human endeavor to attempt to figure out how much work will be involved in a project, and be wrong. The more complex the work being done and the organizational system doing it, the further off estimates can be. This was one of the drivers for both Agile and DevOps: to […]
Manual Intervention or Release Automation? That is the Question
When it comes to launching nuclear weapons, there are a variety of steps and a variety of fail-safe mechanisms, all designed to ensure that those pushing the button really want to do what the nuclear launch system is designed to do. I fear it is some sort of mini-Godwin argument to equate nuclear warfare with […]
NetOps: Thorn in the Side of Continuous Deployment?
Over the last few years, we have definitely gotten continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) down. We now can maintain a relatively constant flow of deployable code sitting and waiting for the actual deployment step to take them to production. Moving to production has been the point at which caution is introduced into the system, […]
Get Ready to Become a Full-Spectrum Engineer
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In software development, change has been a constant. I’ve been a software engineer for more than 25 years and have had to morph, pivot and learn new things to remain current and in demand. Plus, the industry swings like a pendulum between the need for […]
Challenges in DevOps Standardization
Many organizations still face challenges in their Devops adoption journey enterprise-wide, especially when there is no standardization in tools, non-repeatable processes and adhoc practices and culture barriers. Here are some of the challenges in standardization and possible solutions to achieve standardization in DevOps as part of DevOps transformation journey. Business Case A survey conducted within […]
6 Big, Bad Mistakes in Configuration Management, Part 2
In Part One of my article on big, bad mistakes in configuration management, I reviewed the dangers of using the wrong tools for the configuration management job. Provisioning management tools, application release automation tools and continuous integration tools each have their place in your DevOps toolchain. But they should not be used as a substitute […]
6 Big, Bad Mistakes in Configuration Management, Part 1
Configuration problems come in many flavors. Some are mere nuisances. Often though, configuration errors can lead to more serious mishaps like application performance problems, policy compliance violations or even security vulnerabilities. They can often go undetected, quietly doing their damage in the background while everyone’s attention is focused elsewhere. Unfortunately, I find that configuration management […]