staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud

Tag: webcast

  • DevOps by the Book in 2017: Where we Really Stand

    DevOps by the Book in 2017: Where we Really Stand

    Now that the year-end prediction season is over, it’s time to focus squarely on the actual here and now—where the DevOps movement actually stands at the start of 2017.

    As we’ll need to wait another six months or so for the annual State of DevOps Report to emerge from the good folks over at DORA and IT Revolution, which forces us to take stock of the situation using other resources. In this case, I’ll point to the recently released book, “DevOps for Digital Leaders,” authored by my colleague Aruna Ravichandran along with co-authors Kieran Taylor and Peter Waterhouse.

    Register today for the upcoming webcast, “Chart a Winning Course: DevOps for Digital Leaders,” and enter the chance to win a free signed copy of the book [U.S. only].

    Why should you value this book over any of the other DevOps-related titles inundating the technology literature scene, in particular those issued by (gasp!) technology vendors? I’d cite two very specific reasons: real-world metrics and use cases.

    I often preview any comments I make in cross-functional meetings with the phrase “shameless marketing.” That is because I work in marketing. For 12-plus years prior and sometimes in between marketing gigs I’ve served as a journalist, wherein my job was to attempt to be as objective as possible. Today, I work for a vendor that would really like to sell you stuff.

    That said, this current career path does not preclude me from being able to see beyond my own not-so-secret agenda. While many onlookers understandably groan and roll their eyes at the manner in which DevOps has been co-opted by marketers as a means to advance products, this doesn’t mean we’re all full of it.

    Like myself, working at CA—in particular, leading marketing efforts that span a huge array of strategic technologies actively being leveraged by global enterprises to attack various elements of DevOps—has given Aruna and her partners tremendous insight into where many people stand in terms of maturity.

    To that end, this book is written around some fantastic stories about how some of these organizations are refining best practices and measuring real success in domains including continuous testing, release automation and shift-left monitoring. IMHO, these are some of the hottest areas of DevOps being advanced as we speak.

    In addition to these use cases and related practices, the book takes an up-close look at critical aspects of the DevOps build, test, deploy and manage stages, along with key processes related to tuning and continuous improvement. And it even goes so far as to talk about essential DevOps tooling. I hope people are ready to acknowledge that beyond culture and leadership, automation absolutely plays a significant role in all of this.

    Specific to metrics, one of the areas where the State of DevOps peeps attempted to break new ground in the 2016 report, there’s a lot to appreciate. The book takes a close look at how these same organizations are attempting to tie DevOps-driven change directly to ROI, including the all-important customer experience.

    Worth noting, in the coming days we’ll also see the release of a new report from Coleman Parkes that charts numerous KPIs being used to this same end, so stay tuned.

    So there you have it, the marketer has officially hijacked this blog space to do little more than market a book about DevOps written by marketers. But, the truth is that’s not all.

    If you really want to hear the best parts of this story, sign up for the upcoming staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud webcast, “Chart a Winning Course: DevOps for Digital Leaders,” in which Aruna and Alan Shimel will discuss the high points, with an emphasis on fielding questions from the audience live Q&A style.

    If you don’t have time to read the book—or, better yet, you want a preview to ensure that what I’ve written here is true—post up and ask your own questions. We’ll also be conducting live polls about DevOps maturity, audience use cases and the leading types of DevOps metrics.

    It’s worth noting that all proceeds from the print edition will go to Foundation for Excellence, which provides STEM scholarships to children in India. Order your own copy today (or download it for free).

    — Matt Hines

  • Upcoming SANS Webinar: Orchestrating Security in the Cloud

    Upcoming SANS Webinar: Orchestrating Security in the Cloud

    Organizations are increasingly migrating to cloud-based services to handle sensitive data and business processes, meaning security teams need to carefully review and understand what security controls are available to help protect them.

    Given the pace of cloud adoption, security teams need to increase security automation efforts and employ tools that can better secure their cloud assets through improved visibility.

    SANS is hosting an informative webcast on Wednesday, September 23, at 1:00 PM EDT (17:00:00 UTC) to present the findings from a new survey that examines the organizational use of public and private clouds and outlines best practices for assuring a robust security posture.

    The webcast is scheduled in conjunction with the release of the highly anticipated SANS whitepaper on cloud security titled Orchestrating Cloud Security (PDF), written by analyst and network security specialist Dave Shackleford.

    The whitepaper presents the results from a survey 485 IT professionals who use different cloud providers and service models for a variety of business needs, including collaboration services, email, managed services, backups for disaster recovery, and other common use cases for cloud services.

    Although cloud services provide the functionalities businesses need today, the survey reveals that they also come with inherent security risks.

    The SANS survey found that 40% of the respondents acknowledge they process sensitive data in the cloud, and are facing increasing challenges related to access control, configuration management, compliance demands, overall visibility, and the implementation of security controls.

    New technologies are emerging as part of the security-as-a-service (SecaaS) model, which are security-oriented cloud-based services that integrate with provider platforms to protect data in cloud ecosystems.

    “Although many controls are still managed internally, SecaaS is emerging as a viable means to enhance security in the cloud environment. Security teams should start considering the use of SecaaS options when designing and architecting cloud security models,” the SANS survey notes.

    In the upcoming webcast, Shackleford will be joined by myself (Evident.io’s Andrew Maguire), Intel Security’s Margaret Diego, CloudPassage‘s Sami Laine, and Mark Painter from HP Enterprise Security to discuss:

    • How organizations use the cloud
    • What types of information they store in the cloud
    • What concerns they have about data security
    • How much they rely on cloud service providers and what difficulties they face
    • What security and data protection technologies they use in the cloud environment
    • How they manage cloud users
    • And much more

    The SANS survey clearly highlights and validates the challenges of cloud migration across companies of all sizes. Organizations moving workloads to cloud architectures such as Amazon AWS understand the flexibility and cost efficiencies gained – but often struggle with new best practices and the shared responsibility needed to maintain a secure cloud-computing environment.

    The porting of traditionalsecurity technology and Agent-based solutions used in the past do not translate well to cloud environments, leaving customers with too much data and poor visibility into critical service configuration or controls that could eventually lead to compromise.

    Webcast attendees will be among the first to receive the whitepaper. Join us Wednesday, September 23, at 1:00 PM EDT (17:00:00 UTC) for this timely and informative webcast!