Devops lowres-final

CIOReviewDevOpsSpecial
The Navigator for Enterprise Solutions
SEPTEMBER 09, 2016 CIOREVIEW.COM

IN MY OPINION

Pauly Comtois,

VP DevOps,
Hearst Business Media

CIO INSIGHTS

Ryan King,

CIO,
Power Solutions International

Quali

DevOps

IN A BOX

Lior Koriat,
CEO

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COVER CONTENTS
STORY
10

Quali

DevOps
in a Box

Lior Koriat,
CEO

CIO Insights CXO Insights

20 17

When the “Obvious” You Cannot Improve What You
Slaps You in the Face! Do not Measure
Ryan King, Lee Eason,
CIO, Director of DevOps,
Power Solutions International Ipreo

30 24

Cloud Services Supporting IT Goals Agile Isn’t Just for Dev Anymore:
Five Steps to Achieve IT Ops Agility
Derrick A Butts, Bill Talbot,
CIO, VP, Solution & Product Marketing,
Truth Initiative CA Technologies

42 27

|4 |CIOReview Innovating Intelligently When Do-IT-Yourself is Not
Joe Iannello, Good Enough?
VP & CIO, Scott Cleland,
Capital Metrologies Sr. Director of Product Marketing,
HGST, a Western Digital Corporation brand

SEPTEMBER 2016

*All Insights are based on the interviews with respective CIOs and CXOs to our editorial staff

CXO Insights 16 Audeo
19 Cake Solutions
33 22 Chef
26 Intigua
Getting to DevOps Nirvana—Putting 29 REAN Cloud
DevOps Management Front and Center 32 SaltStack
Eric Hoffman, VP & 38 Sysdig
Oleg Chunikhin, Chief Software Architect, 41 VersionOne
Technical Partner, 46 XebiaLabs
EastBanc Technologies
IN MY
36
OPINION
The Devops Culture Change Goes
Way Beyond IT Diving into the Depths of
Raman Sapra, VP & Global Leader, DevOps
Dell Digital Business Services
08 Pauly Comtois,
39 VP DevOps,
Hearst Business Media
Ask Your Managers What They
Really Need
AshLea Allberry,
VP, Operations,
Nanonation, Inc.

44

Operational Visibility in
the SDDC
Dirk Wallerstorfe,
Technology Lead for SDN & OpenStack,
Dynatrace

48

What is a Low-Code/No-Code
Platform?
Thierry Ciot,
Software Architect & Product Owner,
Progress

50

The New Normal: Achievable But
Not Simple
Michael Nygard,
VP,
Cognitect

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CIOReview Editorial

SEPTEMBER - 09 - 2016 The Nuances to

DevOps SPECIAL Triumphing DevOps

Managing Editor Be it buying Christmas gifts on Etsy or sending humans to Mars,
DevOps is playing a vital role in catalyzing innovation by bridging
Jeevan George the gap between development and operations teams. Nonetheless,
while embarking on the journey to heightened productivity by
Editorial Staff adopting a continuous approach to software delivery and development, CIOs
need to carefully revamp their company’s processes by examining the frequency
Aaron Pierce Alex D'Souza and scale of tests running throughout the development cycle. This will not only
Ava Garcia Chithra Vijayakumar help speed up the process, but also streamline troubleshooting and ensure the
Sarah Fernandes bugs are patched considerably quickly.
Joshua Parker
Fortunately, there is no dearth of tools that can assist enterprises—big or
Visualizers small—hop on the DevOps train. Software and services aimed at automation
John Goutham Stephen Thomas and analytics are fueling the DevOps revolution. From Chef, Puppet, and
Docker to Ansible, Ruxit, and Jenkins, today’s innovative tools provide seamless
Sales orchestration, superior control, robust security, and most of all—extensive
Kevin Morris automation.
[email protected]
The rise of DevOps can partly be attributed to the rapid growth of cloud
T: 510-565-7560 computing. Like the continuous development and deployment approach of
DevOps, cloud fosters continuous updates to applications and infrastructure.
Mailing Address While cloud will certainly help DevOps, it is not a necessity. Despite the synergy
CIOReview between the two, they can function independent of each other depending on an
enterprise’s specific needs. What worked for Etsy and NASA might not be the
44790 S. Grimmer Blvd best approach for an SMB, but the benefits of transitioning to DevOps are as
Suite 202, clear as day. All that matters is making a surefooted shift from yesteryear’s
success stories to what will drive enterprises toward glory tomorrow.
Fremont, CA 94538
T:510.402.1463, F:510-894-8405 At this juncture, where nearly every forward-looking company is either
adopting DevOps or is planning to make the jump soon, CIOReview is
CIOReview presenting to you a special edition on DevOps, featuring insights from industry
thought leaders. We hope the technology solutions presented in this 2nd Annual
SEPTEMBER - 9 - 2016, Vol 05 SE 74 Published by ValleyMedia, Inc. DevOps Edition will help you become a DevOps trailblazer.
To subscribe to CIOReview
Visit www.cioreview.com Let us know your thoughts.

Copyright © 2016 ValleyMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction Jeevan George
in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without Managing Editor
written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher [email protected]
assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs
or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are
not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is
assumed by the publisher thereof.

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[ [In My Opinon

Diving into the
Depths of DevOps

By Pauly Comtois, VP DevOps, Hearst Business Media

et’s assume you have completed not afraid to take the road less travelled. ► A clear sense of ownership and
a Culture Session and the team Present a complex problem (one with accountability
is aligned behind the culture you multiple solutions) to solve and observe With the culture of asking people to make
want. Now you need which path is taken by the candidate and more responsible decisions, there is the
to hire new engineers to help why. Are they considering long term need for ownership and accountability.
grow this DevOps culture. A implications (a solution) or short term You make the choice, you set the direction
question that often comes up, gains only (a temporary fix). and you are accountable for your actions.
and while there is no single This does not mean that you punish
answer for everyone, is, “What should ► Self-managed someone for taking a risk and that risk not
I be looking for?” This article will share DevOps seeks to push decision making paying off. It means that the individual
one proven approach for Hiring DevOps toward where the work is being that leads that decision sticks with their
talent. performed. This new level of autonomy choice and sees it through. They receive
I have been building teams for requires engineers that can manage their backing and support from leadership even
over 15 years. In that tasks, workflow and communication. in the face of disaster.
time, those teams have Micromanaging has no place in the
always been DevOps workforce and this is especially true in ► Salesmanship
teams, even before they DevOps. This does not, however, mean In the interview I ask the person to tell
were called DevOps. In reality the focus that you work alone. You need engineers me about something they are passionate
was on building teams that communicated that manage their own work, while being about. Anything. Now try to convince me
well, supported each other and allowed part of the team. to be as passionate about it as you are.
room for mistakes. These have always
been good habits of a high performing
team. Now that we are hiring Developers
and Operations engineers to grow a
DevOps culture, we find ourselves looking
for the same traits.

► Solve complex problems without a
clear answer
DevOps is new and still figuring out
its way in the world. It's the gangly
13-year-old whose body grew faster than
it's maturity. Many of the issues that we
are leveraging DevOps to fix don't have
clearly defined answers. These teams
require explorers (and leaders) that are

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Pauly Comtois Micromanaging do not necessarily mean you don't hire
has no place in the but you must understand the runway for
Part of innovation is lively debate and workforce and this value add for that person is much longer.
convincing others (up, down and sideways is especially true in Consider the position need and timing and
in the reporting structure) to support your DevOps. This does decide accordingly. Someone with a high
idea or approach. Look for someone that not, however, mean level of aptitude can make up for a lack of
is open to different opinions, conveys their that you work alone skills up front and still quickly add value.
ideas succinctly and can professionally
hold to their convictions. DevOps is and frustration. During the interview ■ Skills are the lowest ranking for
about effective communication and process, take the person outside the office DevOps. This doesn't mean you should
collaboration first. for lunch or coffee. Look to see if they hire someone for a senior engineer
can take differing opinions in stride with position with no relevant skills. It does
► Given the rise in remote workers, the good humor or if they display a high mean that skills can be easily taught
majority of technical communication is degree of ontological arrogance. You can and adopted by an individual with high
written (email and chat) also take this opportunity to observe how aptitude. Even though this is the lowest
Give the candidate a problem set and they interact with different people in a level of requirement, it is the one that
ask them to write out one email to their potentially uncomfortable situation. gets the most attention when developing
manager and another for their colleagues, the position description and job posting.
posing a solution. ► Culture, Aptitude and Skill Given that fact I will expand on this to
■ In order to compare many candidates list the skills that I look for in the resume.
► A sense of humor Don’t get too hung up on a specific tool;
DevOps is, at its core, about bringing (often 10-20 at a time) it helps to boil remember that if they fit culturally and
groups of people together. Sometimes down the previous characteristics into have aptitude you want someone that can
you are bringing these groups goals into three categories, and give the applicant quickly learn new tools and approaches!
closer alignment. With so many different a score. They are listed in the order of
personalities, conflicting priorities and importance; Culture, Aptitude and Skill. Look for core skills in the following
deadlines, things can get tense. Having key areas:
a smart and graceful sense of humor can ■ Cultural fit is paramount. I have
defuse conflicts rather than escalate them. discovered, to my own peril, just how ■ Automation: Automating the Value
important it is that the person fit the Stream is an important part of deriving
► Care must be taken to look for culture of your teams. I once hired a value from DevOps. Look for skills in
subtle sarcasm, negativity and passive- brilliant network engineer that, at the time automating system configuration, testing,
aggressive humor of hire, I knew would not fit into the team. code builds.
This type of humor can increase stress I was filling "my" need as a manager, but
not filling the "teams" need. It is difficult, ■ Measurement: Understanding
if not impossible, to change a person’s current state is critical to planning where
core personality. For this reason, cultural you wish to go. Look for skills in tools
fit gets the veto power for DevOps hiring. and process that identify key metrics,
recording and measuring those metrics
■ Aptitude is not always easy to judge and reporting on those metrics publically.
but if you put some reasonable tests in
front of the candidate you can discern ■ Coding/Scripting: The level and
their aptitude. Low levels of aptitude depth of experience in this field will vary,
however understanding code supports all
the other technical functions of DevOps.

If you are new to this approach,
I recommend researching CAMS, an
acronym describing the core values
of DevOps. It was coined by Damon
Edwards and John Willis at DevOps Days
Mountain View 2010.

C – Culture; A – Automation; M –
Measurement; S – Sharing

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20 Most Promising DevOps Solution Providers 2016

Company Management Description

ObjectFrontier Software Rich Napoli, Automates the provisioning, configuration, build, test,
Alpharetta, GA CEO deployment, and monitoring of software systems using the best
objectfrontier.com DevOps tools available.
Jennifer Tejada,
PagerDuty CEO An enterprise incident management provider that integrates with
San Francisco, CA ITOps and DevOps monitoring stacks to improve operational
pagerduty.com Lior Koriat, reliability and agility.
CEO
Quali Provides cloud sandboxes for all stages of the DevOps lifecycle.
Santa Clara, CA
quali.com Darshan Puttanaiah, A software design and development firm specializing in Agile/
Founder & CEO Lean, design thinking, DevOps, and Continuous Delivery.
Qwinix Technologies
Centennial, CO Ben Butler, A one-stop-shop for Managed Cloud Solutions (MCS) that help
qwinix.io VP, Partners, Marketing, & organizations become agile and productive in their DevOps and
Business Development cloud endeavor.
REAN Cloud
Herndon, VA Marc Chenn, Provides configuration management software for the
reancloud.com Co-Founder & CEO orchestration and automation of CloudOps, ITOps, and DevOps.

SaltStack
Lehi, UT
saltstack.com

SmartBear Software Doug McNary, Creates software tools that development, testing, and
Somerville, MA CEO operations teams use to deliver the highest quality and
smartbear.com best performing software possible.

Sysdig Loris Degioanni, A container visibility company dedicated to making containers
San Francisco, CA Founder & CEO viable and mainstream by offering production-quality
sysdig.com monitoring for containerized applications and microservices.

Tricentis Sandeep Johri, Specializes in agile market leading software testing tools
Los Altos, CA CEO for enterprises.
tricentis.com
Robert Holler, Helps organizations achieve the benefits of DevOps by
VersionOne Director, CEO & Co-founder automating, orchestrating, and visualizing the flow of change
Alpharetta, GA throughout the software delivery cycle.
versionone.com
Todd Vernon, Offers real-time incident management platform that combines the
VictorOps Founder & CEO power of people and data to embolden DevOps teams so they can
Boulder, CO handle incidents proactively.
victorops.com
Ryan Pelerin, A solutions integrator specializing in cloud and server migration,
WSM International Founding Partner & CEO transformation, and DevOps services.
St. Clair Shores, MI
wsmintl.com Derek Langone, Develops enterprise-scale DevOps software, providing companies
CEO with the visibility, automation, and control to deliver software
XebiaLabs faster and with less risk.
Boston, MA
xebialabs.com

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Audeo

Emphasizing Collaboration and Communication

DevOps has been breaking" continuously improved methodologies and seamless threat analysis in
down silos in organizations to encourage greater innovation while deployment pipelines. By linking DevOps
and facilitating novel ways of reducing cost, boosting performance, methodologies to critical KPIs, the
solving IT problems. The “2016 State of and adhering to regulatory requirements. company can demonstrate the true impact
DevOps Report” by Puppet reveals that “We assist clients in evaluating their of DevOps on operations. They also offer
firms incorporating DevOps practices current DevOps frameworks and creating real-time access to metrics that measure
experience 24x faster recovery times a detailed roadmap, leading DevOps best performance assessment of current team
and considerably lower change failure practices,” asserts Baugh. “Our process structures and skills—allowing Audeo
rates. “Going beyond a set of tools and optimizes a firm’s cloud architecture for to suggest the need for further training
collaboration, DevOps has culminated rapid scalability, instant failover, and or additional staffing necessary for
into an approach emphasizing high- automated security protocols.” Continuous Integration and Continuous
quality products and customer experience Deployment (CI/CD).
over complex procedures,” begins Highlighting an example, Baugh
Justin Baugh, President of Audeo. “We explains, Epix—an entertainment Justin Baugh
use DevOps methodologies to manage network—relied on legacy, custom
internal IT teams and processes to enable technology and solutions for their Baugh states that customers should
continuous integration and innovation.” developmental operations management. not implement technologies owing to
Specializing in ecommerce clients, Audeo The company needed an up-to-date their popularity, but rather their utility
operational structure in order to launch a and how it will lead the firm toward
Our process new API service for delivering content to efficiency. Audeo makes it a point to
optimizes a firm’s any device. Audeo provided key DevOps be involved with clients from start to
cloud architecture consultation and the technical expertise to finish—recommending architectural
for rapid scalability, help scale and develop Epix’s applications improvements that enhance productivity
instant failover, in the cloud. Today, Epix’s customers when scaling becomes far more important
and automated are receiving products and services than delivering initial results. Audeo
security protocols as per their needs without hindrance differentiates itself by its expertise across
in operations. all areas of DevOps—infrastructure,
delivers an end-to-end infrastructure architecture, and platforms—alongside
solution—not just managed hosting, Audeo, as part of their services, its ability to provide end-to-end solutions.
but a solid platform on which to build. provides a unique solution ‘Merlin’—a “Our consulting services help customers
“Customers no longer need to worry web-based self-service tool for developers scale effectively and deliver more
about scaling issues and delivering an and end-users to quickly provision new agile solutions through implementing
internet-based infrastructure, instead can instances in an infrastructure without continuous integration of DevOps—
focus on offering unique, engaging digital requiring interaction or support from making operations faster, efficient, and
content and the best user experience,” DevOps. Companies use Merlin to reliable,” concludes Baugh.
adds Baugh. empower developers to maintain their
own environments, reduce support
The company’s vast DevOps costs, and increase developer and IT
proficiency enables clients to deploy staff productivity. Audeo invests greatly
new services quickly while applying on innovative technologies to enhance
DevOps measures, and has partnered
with HP, IBM, and Amazon, to provide
private and hybrid cloud solutions for a
variety of needs.

Audeo modernizes security
management systems with automated
security protocols, central logging,

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Chef

Automating Unified Delivery of Applications

Being a media and marketing faster with minimal risks. The firm’s Chef enterprises that are trying to drive
company with unparalleled Server—a highly scalable foundation for innovation velocity through application
local-to-national reach, Gannett the firm’s IT automation platform—uses development and a streamlined set of
successfully connects consumers, a Domain Specific Language (DSL) to practices. “Chef is part of that pattern
communities, and businesses. write system configuration or “recipes.” and we find ourselves at the center of the
Characterized by a traditional Grouped together as a “cookbook,” these DevOps universe,” explains Barry Crist,
deployment workflow with multiple recipes describe a series of resources, CEO, Chef.
handoffs and manual tests, Gannett
faced challenges in maintaining" Chef’s DevOps workflow enables
accurate, repeatable builds. users to quickly and safely deploy
Moreover, several build tests changes to applications and
were often run in the wrong
environments. Experiencing a infrastructure. It is often a time
“shadow IT” situation on the consuming process to implement the
development side, the client was actual pipeline that moves the codes
ready for a change. This is where from development to production.
Seattle, WA based IT automation Apart from supporting technical
challenges, the pipeline should also
Time and again, customers have told us stimulate practices that support a
that the real magic is how we transform
their business through our partnerships DevOps workflow. Adopting
an unconventional approach
provider—Chef—came into picture. The including how packages should be of integrating DevOps practices
customer needed to rebuild a Virtual installed or services should run. Chef can with automation, Chef’s addition to the
Private Cloud on Amazon Web Services either run in client or server mode, or in a platform—Chef Delivery—can be used for
(AWS) for a development environment standalone mode named “chef solo.” As it both infrastructure and application code,
that would mimic production. Though runs, Chef client queries Chef Server for providing operations and development
none of the tools that the client used the latest set of recipes that apply to the teams a common platform for developing,
earlier were appropriate, Chef worked current node. As the server determines testing, and deploying applications. The
well with the cloud and both Linux and the applicable recipes based on the firm’s Chef Automate also offers a full-
Windows environments. In addition node’s roles, the Chef client executes stack continuous deployment pipeline,
to the advantages of automation itself, the recipes—simplifying how recipes and automated testing for compliance and
Chef broke down the barriers between are written and offering continuous, security, including complete visibility
development and operations and helped repeatable results. into operations.
them work together. This ensured The company places as much
increased visibility, effectiveness and The Chef environment comprises importance on the Chef team and culture,
speed of the development cycle. three components—Chef Server, as their technology. “Time and again,
workstation and nodes. With this, customers have told us that the real
Built on an open source platform, Chef Chef bridges traditional, back-office magic is how we transform their business
automates persistent, unified delivery of infrastructure-based IT and the new, front- through our partnerships,” adds Crist.
applications and infrastructure, enabling facing cloud-based IT. “There is explosion With an opportunity to become one
enterprises to deliver software much of transformation inside mainstream of the top companies in the software
industry, Chef is in a constant attempt to
boost innovation, velocity, and quality.
Though Crist believes that there would
be several big changes in the IT in 2016,
the company is geared to stay abreast with
added vigor that will enhance growth.

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CXO

Insights

Agile Isn’t Just for Dev Anymore:

Five Steps to Achieve IT Ops Agility

By Bill Talbot, VP, Solution & Product Marketing, CA Technologies

s an IT Operations professional you know that IT
Ops is at the center of your organization’s success. IT
can either be a factor that enhances the business or a
roadblock that the business will work around to get
what it needs.
The disruptors in the app economy, such as Uber, Netflix,
and others, either already are or are quickly becoming software
companies. And being successful as a software shop means
becoming more agile. But it’s not enough for a development
organization to embrace agility. Agility is as important for Ops
as it is for Dev.

What’s in it for IT Ops? Bill Talbot

In many IT organizations Dev has adopted agile methodologies Agility is as important for Ops
and practices, but what’s in it for IT Ops? as it is for Dev

When IT Ops is agile, it can provide the feedback Dev needs moving app economy. Expensive, multi-year projects based on
to enable continuous improvement of the organization’s apps and waterfall development practices often miss the mark because
services. Agile management enables shared visibility between technology and customers’ needs change significantly from when
Dev and Ops, eliminating key areas of contention and potential projects were first scoped.
delay. Agility helps legacy IT transition more quickly to deliver
the services and apps that customers value. You can still do big projects with Agile but you do them in
small chunks. Keeping project work manageable allows you to
But IT Ops face challenges on the road to becoming agile. The easily adjust as needed. Testing and validating your solution with
IT infrastructure is rapidly becoming more dynamic, distributed your customers on a continual basis ensures you are providing the
and complex, often leaving IT Ops teams with a mix of legacy solution they need.
and newer IT systems to manage using disparate, non-integrated
tools. Finding and fixing bottlenecks can seem like the proverbial
needle in a haystack. New digital services and apps are delivered
faster than ever by agile development teams for IT Ops to deploy
and support. While increasing demands and expectations require
IT Ops to be agile, it may seem impossible to find the time and
resources needed to make that transformation.

Despite these challenges, it’s worth the effort. And
transitioning to an agile IT Ops organization is not as daunting
as it may first appear. Following these five steps can help you
transition and increase your odds of success:

Step 1: Convince Stakeholders that the Shift to Agile
Will Be Worth It; Make a Compelling Case

IT is no longer a back office operation, nor is the legacy waterfall
method of new service delivery still effective in today’s fast-

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REAN Cloud

Securing and Automating DevOps Environments

When entrepreneurs Sri respond rapidly to any unplanned service REAN Cloud has helped various"
Vasireddy, Rupa Vasireddy, disruptions or unresolved degradation in organizations find the right path in
and Sekhar Puli founded the environment,” adds Butler. their cloud and software development
REAN Cloud in the fall of 2013, little journey. Ellucian, a firm in the education
Unwanted errors are bound to occur technology space, moved its applications
did they know how fast their company if the cloud environments and DevOps
processes lack reliable tools, which can Our Managed Services
would become an integral part of the jeopardize the security of the overall platform leverages
infrastructure. “Our Managed Services automation to adapt
DevOps and Amazon Web Services platform leverages automation to adapt to dynamic DevOps
to dynamic DevOps ecosystems and ecosystems and ensure
(AWS) revolution. In the past few ensure industry standards are maintained industry standards
across our customer’s fleets—tagging, are maintained across
years, REAN Cloud has exceeded all backups, and compliance scores,” says our customer’s fleets
Butler. The company also has a unique
expectations of IT organizations with its combination of skills and expertise to to AWS with the support of REAN Cloud.
help clients implement DevSecOps to Based on their shared success, Ellucian
agile approach toward cloud migration, engaged with REAN Cloud again to
Ben Butler evaluate and transform their deployment
creating an opportunity for development and integration to adopt a cloud-based
make security testing an integral part agile engineering DevOps process. REAN
and operations units to work as a team. of the CI/CD process. “REAN Cloud Cloud supported Ellucian by developing
aims at using DevSecOps on AWS cloud a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline with
Amid these circumstances, Herndon, to continuously improve and secure applications running on Amazon Elastic
processes in a more granular way,” Compute Cloud. Eventually, Ellucian
VA based REAN Cloud is enabling adds Butler. The combination of REAN leveraged the DevOps Pipeline, built
Cloud’s IP, CI/CD, and MGS effectively on AWS, to deploy new code that was
enterprises to manage complex and manages a client’s DevOps and cloud automatically tested and used as machine
operations, while enabling them to focus images, across multiple environments.
highly scalable architectures through on their business and core competencies.
Having recently closed its first round
its Managed Services (MGS) and of funding, REAN Cloud is determined
to further extend its growth trajectory.
Continuous Integration/Continuous “We acquired Opex Software which
will fortify our already strong suite of
Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline automation. Infrastructure Automation Deployment
and Testing capabilities,” says Butler.
“We use DevOps and MGS offerings to Through such ambitious steps, REAN
Cloud aims to strengthen its leadership
provision infrastructure for our clients, position and brand awareness as DevOps
and AWS Cloud Experts in the cloud
secure workloads, and process models arena worldwide.

for building and deploying apps,” says

Ben Butler, VP, Partners, Marketing, and

Business Development, REAN Cloud.

For REAN Cloud, it is all about

eliminating the walls between teams

and driving maximum value from AWS.

Being an AWS Premier Consulting

Partner with DevOps Competency and

audited Managed Services Partner,

REAN Cloud fosters transparency in the

deployment of software and unleashes

a continuous innovation pipeline for

organizations looking for quality and

feature-rich applications. With REAN

Cloud and its CI/CD service, software

applications can be developed in quick

successions, without risking the resiliency

of the solution. Even if bugs are detected,

REAN Cloud empowers developers to fix

the issues quickly and focus on building

the chief application capabilities. “Our

monitoring tools allow organizations to

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[ [CXO
Insights

The Devops Culture Change
Goes Way Beyond IT

By Raman Sapra, VP & Global Leader, Dell Digital Business Services

Raman Sapra evOps got its name from its inclusion of IT
Operations participants on application development
teams.

That’s unfortunate, because Dev + Ops is not
only what’s least interesting about DevOps, it’s also its most
transient characteristic: Companies like Pivotal, RedHat and
Chef are providing so much automation for provisioning,
integration, isolation, and deployment, that Operations’ role in
DevOps is shrinking on a daily basis.

What the name does hint at is that at its core DevOps isn’t
about processes, or techniques, or tools.

Talk to anyone who’s been through the DevOps
transformation and you’ll hear the same thing: Before it’s
anything else, DevOps is a change in culture.

For those who have been through it, this change in culture
is often so permeating that articulating just what it means can
be difficult.

Start with a definition. While anthropologists have several
definitions of culture, and consultants use the term in several
different ways, in the end culture means “how we do things
around here.” It’s the shared set of hidden assumptions,
unwritten rules, and attitude about things that gives the word
“we” some bite.

For DevOps teams, how we do things around here means:
► Collaboration– This was the first DevOps breakthrough.
App Dev and IT Operations usually exist in a state of
uneasy truce, with App Dev trying to change the production
environment by promoting new code to production, and IT
Operations trying to keep the production environment stable
and prevent frequent changes. DevOps turned this hostile

DevOps culture can’t
succeed in traditional

businesses

|36|CIOReview SEPTEMBER 2016

relationship into collaboration, and is now the most prominent of good enough,” which is the point where testing an idea is
element of the DevOps culture. superior to analyzing it.

► Automation– The usual approach to business decision- Speed might, in fact, literally rule the business, if executive
making when it comes to automation is to perform some form suite strategists make the OODA loop (for “observe, orient,
of return-on-investment analysis, which presupposes that cost decide, act”) the centerpiece of business strategy. Even if it
minimization is the be all and end all of process optimization. The falls short of that, businesses with a DevOps culture will, at a
DevOps way is to automate everything that can be automated, not minimum,replace “Has this reached the point where we have
to only automate everything whose automation passes a financial no choice” with “Is there any reason we can’t proceed?” as the
ROI hurdle. Everything. That’s because speed rules. trigger for important decisions and actions.

► Speed rules– DevOps is all about speed in both of its Business managers that insist on yet one more analysis
meanings – reducing cycle time and increasing throughput. It’s before acting will find that increasingly, their peers who have
about each requested change producing value faster than before, participated in DevOps projects will ask them a simple question:
and increasing IT’s overall capacity to deliver changes. Among What if Amazon made decisions this way? Google? Facebook?
DevOps devotees, cost-cutting is nice, but any false economies Think they’d lead their industries if they did?
that slow a project down are off the table.
Beyond this, the DevOps culture of collaboration and inclusion
► Quality is more than the absence of reinforces a trend that’s been incubating for years and is finally
bugs– Standard practice in App Dev teams
is that quality is defined as bug-free code, a coming into its own: a change in management
bug being software that doesn’t do what it’s culture that begins with the recognition
supposed to do. Among DevOps developers, that there is no such thing as an IT project
poorly structured code that violates good – every project is about business change
programming practices is low-quality code, and improvement.
whether or not it runs and yields the right It extends to recognize that very few
results. business changes can happen without
changes to the supporting
► Recognizing the exalted state of information technology.
“good enough” Quality is one thing. Its logical end-point is that
Needless insistence on “just one more test” is something else “Business/IT alignment” is no longer
entirely– a pointless nod to the timid that violates the speed-rules good enough. Business/IT alignment
rule. is a relic of a time when IT was
supposed to be run like a business – a
This DevOps culture can’t succeed in traditional businesses.
It can’t because businesses that have these characteristics won’t supplier of technology to its “internal customers.”
let IT develop the DevOps way – for the rest of the business, the But if there’s no such thing as an IT project because all
DevOps culture just isn’t how we do things around here, the way
we do things around here including an intense emphasis on cost- projects are about business change, then IT has to be a peer, a
cutting, excessive risk aversion, and organizational siloes with partner, and a collaborator in making those changes happen.
high walls and wide moats – the polar opposite of collaboration.
And in particular IT has to be a partner in creating value for
Which means companies that want IT to successfully the company’s real paying customers.
implement DevOps will find themselves adopting equivalent
cultural traits, in particular: The habit of collaboration, and all Business/IT alignment? Hardly. Business/IT integration is the
the silo-busting it implies; the automation of anything that can wave of the future.
be automated, not mere process enablement; and speed ruling the
business too. No, make that the wave of the present, where the highest
level of effectiveness is a collaboration of business, development
And an additional point: In DevOps businesses, the culture and operations, working in a “BusDevOps” partnership –one
reorients from slow and steady to quick and agile. DevOps that moves beyond a “paint-by-numbers” approach to focus on
businesses recognize that failing fast and failing forward is a creating a unique and superior customer experience with the
competitive advantage – they recognize their own “exalted state marketplace.

DevOps is a handy way to make and deliver software,
especially the software that delivers a brilliant customer experience
across all of the channels customers use to communicate and do
business.

But compared to the culture change DevOps can drive into the
business, fast software delivery probably pales in importance.

|37|CIOReview SEPTEMBER 2016











Joe Iannello Developing a balanced
portfolio that includes

customer focused
innovation is a critical

success factor

spawns other opportunities. For example, Capital Metro
success with mobile ticketing and other innovations such
as smart infrastructure supporting vehicle movements
and real-time open data have been factors in Austin
being selected, in 2015, as the lead city in nation for the
Mobility Transformation Initiative that is being facilitated
by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Another example was
Austin being selected, this year, as a finalist in the Smart
City Challenge by the US Department of Transportation.

Innovation is like so many things—easier said
than done—especially when you consider not only
competing priorities but, also, the resistance that might
be encountered or the cultural change required. That
is why there is increasing discussion of “Bi-Modal
Approach” to projects— one mode that has been in
existence for decades addressing traditional projects and
systems— and now a second newer mode focused on
innovation projects which require not only an agile project
development methodology but, really needs to address
the mindset and process changes needed throughout the
organization to address the full life cycle of exploration,
budgeting, acquisition/procurement, project management,
development, testing, marketing, piloting, launching,
refreshes and leveraging investments.

CIO’s today are undoubtedly faced with many
challenges including Internal Systems Modernization and
Support, On-premises and Cloud Infrastructure, Cyber
Security, Data Management, Staffing, Vendor and Project
Management, just to name a few. The good news is that
there are opportunities everywhere including emerging
technologies such as Advanced Mobile Technology,
Internet-of-Things, Autonomous Devices and Vehicles,
3D Printing and Gigabit Wireless Communications.
Developing a balanced portfolio that includes customer
focused innovation is a critical success factor which will
result in not only serving your customers but, also, will
yield additional opportunities as we move into the future.

|43|CIOReview SEPTEMBER 2016

[ [CXO
Insights

Operational Visibility
in the SDDC

By Dirk Wallerstorfe, Technology Lead for SDN & OpenStack, Dynatrace

oday developers and operators face the requirements of was to place a physical probe that was able to capture and identify
thousands of users expecting hundreds of application all traffic and the communication endpoints of all applications.
to operate without any disruptions at a high speed In combination with real user data and performance metrics of
from everywhere around the globe. That is why cloud the application servers operators were able to pinpoint the exact
computing is and will be of rising importance to companies reason for performance degradation with ease. In increasingly
of all sizes. As a logical consequence, so is the demand for
capacity and availability of the underlying IT infrastructure. With today’s network virtualization
The developers, operators, and users should have the luxury of capabilities it is hard to determine
being able to focus on applications and not on capabilities and if the network connectivity of any
limitations of data centers. To this end the implementation of given operating system is physical
an adaptable Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) is a viable
option that gains more and more traction. or virtual
The foundation of an SDDC is virtualization of CPU,
memory, storage, and lately even networks. Virtual servers are virtualized environments the placement of
created and maintained using an API and provide unprecedented physical probes becomes more and more
flexibility compared to provisioning of physical servers, let difficult, and less practicable. If two virtual
alone saving of time. The main challenges of SDDC are the servers running on the same hypervisor
same as with traditional data centers—keeping costs at talk to each other, it is very unlikely that
a minimum, while providing good user experience. even one byte of data will pass the physical
Software-defined data centers are inherently network interface of the host running the
built to scale all kinds of resources up and down hypervisor, because the whole network
in a timely manner by utilizing provisioning and communication between the two virtual
orchestration tools. However, this dynamism machines happens within the hypervisor.
is not feasible with traditional networks that This might leave important gaps in probe-
rely on human beings configuring switches, based monitoring.
routers, and firewalls by hand. That’s where Agent-based monitoring is a
network virtualization comes into play. complementary approach to stay on top
Software-defined networks (SDN) provide of the complexity and the dynamics
the required network programmability and are of software-defined data
thereby an integral cornerstone of every SDDC. centers. Though, one of
The shift to software-defined networks doesn’t the drawbacks is,
void the necessity of monitoring network traffic, but
the approach to monitorinneeds to be adapted.
Up until the rise of network
virtualization, the best way to
monitor network traffic

|44|CIOReview Dirk Wallerstorfe

SEPTEMBER 2016











[ [CXO
Insights

The New Normal:

Achievable But Not Simple

By Michael Nygard, VP, Cognitect

Michael Nygard

e’re ten years into the “devops + microservices” intended effect, roll it out broadly. If not, revert. This means

era. As I’ve consulted with companies in business and technical metrics must be unified. Marketing cannot

transformation, I've seen common patterns in have one set, development another, and operations a third.

those that succeed.

Adrian Cockcroft, formerly of Netflix, has talked about their Disposable Code—Code is a liability, not an asset. It has a

development prowess. A listener asked where they found such carrying cost: your maintenance budget. The more lines of code

talented developers. Adrian replied, “We hired them from you, you have, the more risk you have. Very large code bases generate

then got out of their way.” Team-scale autonomy is impossible in fear of unintended effects.

most companies. Inter-team dependencies and high per-incident The Right Tools—Use tools that encourage greater modularity,

risks prevent it.

You can create a world where it is safe to “get out of their loose coupling, and reduced dependencies. They should help

way.” It requires effort and creative thinking among developers, you develop general purpose services more easily than specific

IT executives, and business executives. When designing solutions. Functional languages have advantages here.

the organization: Team Scale Autonomy—Eliminate or invert dependencies

between systems, components, and teams. Give each team power

Anticipate and Embrace Breakage—Don’t expect and responsibility.

everything to run like clockwork. Everything breaks. It's just a

question of when. Continuous partial failure is normal. Plan for Failure Domains and Safety—Minimize the cost of

it and big changes become possible because incidents. Reduce the impact of any

your team will know how to handle disruption. service failure. Make it quick to detect

Aim for Antifragility—Resilience is Lean is good, but too much and correct. Turn hard dependencies into
of it will make you fragile soft ones.
not enough. Resilient means that the system
resists shocks. Antifragile systems love Data Leverage—Focus on the data on

uncertainty. They get better with rapid change. the wire. Use languages and frameworks that

Evolutionary Architecture—Allow teams to create and destroy expose it, instead of locking it inside domain objects and DTOs.

components at any time. Microservices are just one approach to

accomplish this. New services “spawn” from ones that already Tempo—Shorten the decision loop. At the micro level, use team

work. Services that gain users survive, while services with few scale autonomy and antifragile architecture. At the macro level,

or no users should die. A service that can never be replaced is refactor your organization for the next war instead of the last one.

a failure. Realizing the New Normal—This new normal is achievable

There is No Silver Bullet—Agile development—effective at but not simple. You must incorporate all these ingredients, all the

the team level—does not create antifragility. That is a property of time. Start small. Make small steps in each area. Iterate within a

the whole organization. Lean is good, but too much of it will make shared vision. Don't get discouraged: we all overestimate change

you fragile. Both are micro scale tools only. in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.

This culminates in an antifragile infrastructure for autonomous

Minimize Risk by Maximizing Change—Make changes high-velocity teams, an organization that is attentive and

frequently, but make each small–quick to roll out and quick to responsive to changes in the market, and a company that operates

revert. Expose each change to a small audience. If it has the with greater flexibility, adaptability and at a higher tempo.

|50|CIOReview SEPTEMBER 2016