Introduction. Your Software: Faster. Stronger. Better.

Transcription

1 Your Software: Faster. Stronger. Better. Introduction The digital age we now live in demands a pace of delivery to market unheard of ever before. Delivering new or enhanced software to market rapidly can keep your business relevant, delight your customers and ensure you stay ahead of your competition. Historically businesses have worked in silos, with developers working very separately to other departments. Whilst existing processes will have served an organisation well in the past, this silo approach drastically reduces the ability to compete in today s rapidly developing and demanding markets. DevOps by its very nature disrupts these silos as it requires all teams - Development, QA and Operations - to collaborate, communicate and work in a more cohesive way, allowing organisations to be enabled through software. DevOps can make a real, tangible and positive difference to your development and delivery lifecycle. In this guide we look to introduce the relatively new concept that is DevOps and how it can benefit your business.

2 What Is DevOps? Like any new term, sometimes contradictory interpretations can be used until it becomes established and more mainstream. DevOps is a relatively complex concept and because of that it doesn t have a simple definition. It means different things to different people but fundamentally it is a philosophy and way of working that stresses communication, collaboration, integration, automation and measurement with the purpose of creating and delivering software applications to customers. Perhaps it is easier to immediately clarify what Dev- Ops is not; It is not no ops at all; it is also not just tools to automate processes, testing and the like; neither is it just the implementation of a cultural change within an organisation; or just a collaboration with Development and Operations alone. DevOps by its very nature is constantly evolving and changing, so there are no hard and fast rules. Don t see that as a negative though, far from it in fact as DevOps is having a massively positive impact across many industries already and this will continue to gather pace as it matures as a technology management approach. At Daemon Solutions we believe that DevOps in its purest form is an entire organisation pulling in the same direction to rapidly deliver high quality software products and reduce costs. However, to achieve this state of DevOps utopia requires the letting go of old methodologies and a universal willingness to truly embrace a new way of working. One of the key challenges for any enterprise is how to implement Dev- Ops whilst continuing to deliver change throughout the business. What Is DevOps? Dev encompasses all the people involved in developing the software including Product and QA amongst others, whilst Ops includes systems engineers and administrators, operations staff, release engineers, DBAs, network engineers, security professionals and the rest. Simply put, for truly successful DevOps implementation within an organisation, it is everyone collaborating throughout the entire lifecycle, with the understanding that software isn t finished until it s launched to market and successfully meets customer expectations.

3 Why DevOps? DevOps does closely resemble both Agile and Lean approaches. However, the historic view of Dev and Ops working in their own silos, and the ensuing negative impact that has had on software delivery to the customer, has seen the advent of DevOps which extends Agile and Lean principles to encompass the entire software delivery lifecycle. It involves numerous techniques, multiple roles within an organization and lots of intersecting technologies, which means there has already been a huge range of tools developed with the goal of facilitating configuration, management, orchestration, monitoring, virtualisation and containerisation, amongst others. As the DevOps world matures and continues to try things, learn from them and fine-tunes approaches, we will see this range of tools created increase exponentially to help make those approaches easier and more consistent to apply. DevOps - the reality To really embrace DevOps you need to understand all the layers that go into it, and what a given DevOps implementation might look like, depending on the requirements of your organisation. Therefore there is no one size fits all in terms of how you implement it. What is generic is the need for the initial decision makers who wish to introduce it to your business to fully understand the values, principles, methods and practices of DevOps and then get management buy-in. Without that top-down approach to introducing cultural change, which is what truly embracing DevOps principles is all about, it can never really deliver on its full potential within an organisation. Development with safe, manageable, easy to monitor ways of getting software to the end user, without the process always being a major project. Providing the infrastructure for a DevOps enabled organisation can require a lot of thought, planning and activity prior to implementation, for example, consider a multi-site enterprise they will need to develop either their own automation or customise off-theshelf- tools to meet the needs and demands of the business before DevOps can be embraced. Exactly what capabilities your Operations function provides, will vary greatly depending on your products and your organisational structure. In any organisation intent on implementing a DevOps approach, Operations will need to embark on a certain amount of software development, to create units of automation that make the operations side of the organization run more independently and provides Be clear on one thing - there is no DevOps quick fix. To truly embrace DevOps is to change ways of working, only then will the true benefits be clearly appreciated and the results speak for themselves.

4 What are the benefits of DevOps? The creation of very few barriers between coder and user Software releases are more frequent and more rapid to deliver Everyone involved both understands and shares the same end goal A company-wide culture of trust and collaboration is introduced Tighter integration of application lifecycle phases Collaboration delivers the ability to monitor the end user experience

5 The reality of implementing DevOps DevOps gets a lot of press these days and there are a lot of different opinions on how a DevOps project should be implemented. The key to successfully implementing DevOps within your organisation is in recognising it is not confined to just technology and automation. To realise the full potential of DevOps and reap these benefits requires significant cultural change and the implementation and acceptance of new working processes, functional and operating models. Working with a partner organisation with considerable experience in implementing DevOps across a range of businesses, both in terms of size and sector, could ensure your company positively embraces that change and can achieve a real competitive edge in your specific markets. Daemon Solutions can work with you to achieve this by utilising our proven, high-energy agile approach: Assess Discover Deliver Step 1: Assess We conduct a high-level assessment of your existing capabilities and potential benefits. This sets out the costs/benefits case for wider engagement of DevOps throughout your organisation. Timescales: 3-5 days. Typical Discovery Scope: Current practices (source control, branch & merge strategy, defect management, code build & deployment) and tools 3rd party supplier development practices QA and testing practices including frameworks Environment build and management practices Service Operations processes (eg. Release/ Change Management) Project process and pipeline Solution architecture and boundaries of CI/CD solutions Typical Discovery Outcomes and Deliverables: Documentation of problem statements and relevant findings for the discovery scope problem statements & findings for CI/CD capabilities delivery Definition of workstreams for CI/CD capabilities delivery CI/CD competencies & capabilities to address CI/CD roadmap, showing anticipated timelines Statement of quick wins & expected benefits High level project plan for delivery of quick wins Agreement for benefits metrics & measurements Step 2: Discover This is a 4-6 week detailed review with a team of our consultants working with you to fully analyse your existing processes, capabilities and culture. This is where we agree the backlog for the delivery phase. Step 3: Deliver Using Agile, we work in partnership with your teams to implement the agreed DevOps improvements. Depending on the scope of these, the project timescales can vary but as a guide 3-12 months.

6 Summary DevOps is not something you do, it is an ethos that needs to be embraced company-wide to ensure your organisation becomes agile enough to rapidly respond to customer demands, market conditions, competitive pressures and regulatory requirements. If you wish to explore the tangible business benefits that DevOps can deliver, we are currently offering a no obligation, fact finding consultation to demonstrate how you could gain real value from your investment in DevOps with Daemon Solutions. Please contact us on +44 (0) or info@daemonsolutions.com, alternatively search for Daemon Solutions on the g-cloud digital marketspace.