The cloud is not new. The virtues of the cloud have been proclaimed incessantly for years, and most businesses have embraced cloud servers and services on some level. The realities of data security and the need to leverage existing investments in IT infrastructure, however, generally result in some sort of hybrid cloud setup, with servers […]
Why Is There No DevOps Manifesto?
Let’s start with a brief story: There’s a scene in a movie called “A Few Good Men” in which a lawyer is questioning a cadet. The lawyer directs the cadet to turn to the page in the thick Marine Code Manual that explains where to find the canteen. And the cadet replies, it isn’t in there. And the lawyer says, “Well, you […]
Streamlining Cloud Tools, Platforms Management
DevOps and microservices have transformed the way organizations develop, deploy and manage applications—as well as the underlying infrastructure required to support it, be it cloud on on-premise. On the one hand, DevOps and microservices enable much greater speed and agility. On the other hand, that speed and agility come with a heaping side of complexity. […]
DevOps Debates: Monoliths or Microservices
From the time software came into existence, application software has been booming to leverage the benefit of the computing paradigm. During this cycle, it has transformed decades of design and architectural thinking, and has crossed all aspects of application development and management needs, be it configurability, reusability, maintainability, scalability or security (a good list is of […]
Microservices: Easier Than You Think
“Microservices are easier than you think and more valuable than you’ve heard.” Those are the words of Ben Gracewood, chief delivery officer at cloud POS and omnichannel retail provider Vend. His company has used microservices to trim a monolithic PHP application, improving performance and changing the way the company approaches updates. Approaching Microservices Vend is […]
Flash Mob Inflection: Rugged DevOps Revolution
Truthfully, I was never a huge fan of the HBO series “The Sopranos.” It’s not that it wasn’t entertaining; I just didn’t agree with the “best ever” label that so many espoused during the show’s halcyon days. This had something to do with living in Hoboken, N.J., at the time and feeling the show was […]
DevOps and the Challenge with Services
At RackN, we’ve been working for years to make DevOps portable across platforms. For us, that means the ability to move between clouds and from cloud to metal. Of the several challenges to portability—composability, API heterogeneity, sequence, cross-system dependencies—making configuration management tools work with services has been particularly important, as significant parts of building systems […]
Will Microservices Make the ‘Ops’ in ‘DevOps’ Obsolete?
DevOps is a portmanteau of “developers” and “operations.” The concept of DevOps is about shifting IT culture in a way that enables developers and operations to work together more seamlessly. As more and more elements of DevOps become automated and leverage microservices such as container platforms, though, the operations side of that equation plays a […]
How to Handle DevOps Microservices (Hint: Carefully)
Given the dizzying amount of best-of-breed tools that can be involved in the development pipeline, a well-written microservice comes to the rescue with just enough code to keep things running. But too much of anything is never good. Here’s how and when to use microservices. Microservices are all the rage right now: these mini-apps are […]
Microservices, Hyper-Complexity, and Automation
Imagine building a human being one DNA codon at a time. Sure, you might be able to build a pretty awesome individual. But it would take a long, long time. And you’d only be able to build one. Worse yet, if you didn’t get your person exactly right on your first try, it would take […]










