Question 1 : So, let’s start with the obvious question. What is DevOps and why is it inevitable for today’s businesses to adopt?
Answer : DevOps at the end of the day, if you look at it from a higher level, it is really the automation of agile, a better way to perform application design, development and deployment. This is far superior than the waterfall method which I actually started working on and was even teaching college, back in the 80s and 90s. So, the idea is that we’re going to, in essence, continuously improve the software through an agile methodology where we get together to deal with events versus some sort of a schedule or sequence, and how software is delivered.
So, DevOps really is the ability to automate that. And so, it’s the idea that we can actually code applications, say an application that runs on Linux, we can hit a button and it automatically goes through testing, including penetration testing, security testing, stability testing, performance testing. And then moves into a continuous integration process, then moves into a continuous deployment process and then is pushed out to a particular staging area and then it’s pushed out from the staging area to a production server.
The goal of DevOps is really kind of remove the humans from that process even though we haven’t done that completely yet. It is, in essence, to create a repeatable process as leverage with the number of tool sets that are working together to streamline the modification and delivery of software in a way that’s going to be better quality each time the software is delivered. There’s some cultural issues around DevOps as well, by the way, that are just important, it’s the ability to, in essence, understand that thinkers are going to be integrated iterative, the ability to deal with feedback directly from the testers and the operators, the ability to flatten the organization, and have a very open and interactive organization moving forward. And that’s the other side of the coin.
So people have a tendency to look at DevOps as just a tool chain with lots of cool tools, continuous integration, continuous testing, those sorts of things are working together, but it’s really a combination of a toolchain of process, and also a cultural change that’s probably more important than any of the technological changes.
Question 2 : One interesting point you mentioned about agile. So, I mean, as we all know, agile is a very commonly adopted methodology that’s in the software industry and I mean lot of companies are implementing agile successfully. So, as we talk about DevOps, I know it’s an extension, but how is this complementing to agile from a practical implementation standpoint?
Answer : Again, DevOps is really going to be very much of the automation of agile. So Agile is going to take a cultural change, an organizational change in order to make it effective. And ultimately, we’re leveraging a toolchain within DevOps as a way to automate everything that occurs in an agile environment. So, if we’re getting together on a daily basis to form a scrum and we’re talking about what needs to be changed, then typically the DevOps toolchain is where those changes are going to occur.
