There is quite a bit of talk right now about DevOps and how important automation is. This could be compared to GM in the 1980s when the company tried to transform the way they built cars through automation and robot. In the early 1980’s GM spent $90B dollars in an attempt to speed up the […]
Can you appreciate DevOps, if you can’t exactly say what it is?
I recently had a conversation with some SOX IT auditors and was asked what I meant when I said we were a DevOps shop. I stumbled a little, torn somewhere between an overly simplistic answer and a desire to baptize the unholy. I started by talking about collaboration between the developers and the admins. Mentioning […]
PEBKAC Avoidance
We’ve all said it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all shook our heads at it. PEBKAC. Problem exists between keyboard and chair. User error. While generally applied to the end-user community – those folks who are considered technical neophytes by IT professionals – it can and should also be applied to those of us who […]
Zen and The Art Of Infrastructure Maintenance
There’s a famous passage I’ve quoted from time to time when I see someone “stuck” with a problem, flailing potential fixes and solutions wildly in hope that one of them does the trick. “Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind.” Just like that. Improper grammar and all, quoted verbatim from Robert Pirsig’s philosophical […]
DEVOPS AND CONTINUIOUS DELIVERY; THE NEED FOR SPEED
Some good stuff around the DevOps scene this week on DevOps and Continuous Delivery, which the pundits are saying will be a major spend area in 2014. First up is the Devopsguys who with a little commentary reposted this infographic from Zend Technologies. It demonstrates the real value in DevOps and continuous delivery. One thing that jumped […]
DevOps: An Opportunity to Build a Better Resiliency
Security professionals like to check code for security-related defects before the code is delivered. When they start hearing about multiple builds a day, or even a few builds a week, and a radical decrease in development time along with operational changes, they are bound to give pause. After all, most are having a hard time […]
DevOps and Security Are Compatible
When I speak with information security organizations faced with the prospect of moving to DevOps, one of the most common fears I hear is that this transition will degrade security of infrastructure and applications. If you’re one of these folks, I understand this fear but you can rest assured: when you do things correctly security will […]
Security Policies For DevOps 101
A while back I was talking with some friends about how to ensure security inside a devops environment. The simple first thought was that no where does DevOps say to do away with security. Instead, consider how your existing information security practices and policies need to adjust given the changes that DevOps brings to the […]
Step One Of DevOps Ignores Technology
I’ve spent a bunch of time talking with Adrian Cockcroft, former cloud tzar at Neflix, and listening to his various talks and presentations. I’ve also spent a bunch of time looking around the various rooms within which he presents and seen the dazed look of attendees who have rightly assumed that just seen a picture […]
Why you can’t buy DevOps in a box
Companies will often believe they can buy their way out of technical debt without making any substantial changes. They often think they can buy DevOps in a box. Well, unfortunately, devops isn’t for sale. For an organization to embrace DevOps it will need to adopt cultural change, adopt tools which enable automation, and change processes […]