devops challenges and best practices

DEVOPS CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICESHow to use tools and cloud services to improve deployments

THE VALUE OF THIS PRESENTATION

The pursuit for the perfect synchrony between software development and IT operations is still ongoing, and striking the balance won’t happen any time soon.

Understand and address these 5 common DevOps challenges to achieve a higher- functioning and collaborative organization.

5 CHALLENGES PLAGUING DEVOPS

CULTURE COMMUNICATION & PROCESSES INFRASTRUCTURE

TOOLS & APPS BUDGETING

CHALLENGE 1: CULTURE

STRUCTURAL CHALLENGE:

What happens to

traditional development and operations silos?

ACCOUNTABILITYCHALLENGE:

Who owns it?

Culture exists no matter what, and it usually creates itself. A  frictionless process  and the  ability to scale  only works when teams work as one.

CHALLENGE 2: OUTDATED COMMUNICATIONS AND PROCESSES

The bottom line: manual build and test processes increase errors.

It takes a long time to provision resources (obtain

testing tools, change servers)

- And -

Developers make frequent unique changes…

The quality of development and testing is

diluted.

Because…

CHALLENGE 3: OUTDATED INFRASTRUCTURE

Inflexible networks’ interdependency cant be changed, broken, moved or replicated.

IPs

Ports

Routing tables

No self service

Little to no automation

CHALLENGE 4: TOOLS & APPS

DEVELOPERS• Don’t have a holistic view of the

business• Don’t understand why a quick fix

tool won’t work• Use non-approved tools

BUSINESS USERS• Believe everything can be solved

with an app• Don’t understand the complexity

of backend integrations• Use non-approved tools

CHALLENGE 5: BUDGETING

CAPEX OPEX

Capital and operational expenses are tied together.

SOLUTIONS

Bridge the culture gap

Identify the right tools

Implement a Software Defined

Datacenter

Adopt agile project

management

Reevaluate the budgeting process

SOLUTIONS


SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS


That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.

Create leaders & delegate authority

1

TIPS

• Create DevOps champions throughout the organization to distribute the workload of DevOps evangelism and DevOps implementation

• Select a single champion to own creating a collaborative environment

SOLUTIONS



Gain executive buy in

1

TIPS

• You need a champion for this endeavor. If this is the CIO, he/she must be a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief

• Must create collaborative environment

• Shift focus from individual department to interdepartmental collaborative teams

That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.2

SOLUTIONS


A key performance indicator (KPI) is a business metric used to evaluate factors that are crucial to the success of an organization.

Evaluate KPIs TIPS

• Track metrics that look at systems as a whole, not siloed information

• Don’t let KPIs conflict with agility and customer

satisfaction

• Look at KPIs that tell you how your automation processes are improving the overall delivery capabilities: frequency of builds, build success rates, build time

When team members become more poly-skilled and silos are dismantled, communication is improved, and bottlenecks are removed from old-world software organizations. 3

SOLUTIONS


TIPS

• Let your team’s skill sets evolve

• Encourage developers and operations to share responsibilities.

• Create shared incentives

Spread the wealth

SOLUTIONS


When team members become more poly-skilled and silos are dismantled, communication is improved, and bottlenecks are removed from old-world software organizations.

Share success

TIPS

• Use internal corporate social outlets to help drive efficiency and productivity and enhance traditional tools like IM, email, and service desks

For DevOps to succeed, team-to-team communication, transparency, spread of knowledge and fast feedback loops are essential.

4

SOLUTIONS


When team members become more poly-skilled and silos are dismantled, communication is improved, and bottlenecks are removed from old-world software organizations.

TIPS

• Create an open and honest environment where it’s ok to make mistakes

• Encourage “blameless” post-mortems

• Implement version control

• Transparency through tools

Promote transparency5

Ability to use a wide variety of open source technologies and tools Ability to code and script

Experience with systems and IT operations Comfort with with frequent, incremental code testing and deployment

Strong grasp of automation tools Data management skills

A strong focus on business outcomes Comfort with collaboration, open communication and reaching across functional borders

6

SOLUTIONS


TIPS

• Because resources are hard to find, teach high-performing internal personnel

• Look for individuals that know how to build the tools that remove pain points instead of experts in a particular software

• Recruit and retain women. Strive for a diverse group.

Only 18% of people have a DevOps title.

Hire promote&

Ability to use a wide variety of open source technologies and tools Ability to code and script

Experience with systems and IT operations Comfort with with frequent, incremental code testing and deployment

Strong grasp of automation tools Data management skills

A strong focus on business outcomes Comfort with collaboration, open communication and reaching across functional borders

6

SOLUTIONS


ATTRIBUTES OF A STRONG DEVOPS CANDIDATE

• Some operations background; focus on business outcomes• Ability to use a wide variety of technologies and tools • Ability to code and script • Experience with systems and IT operations • Comfort with with frequent, incremental code testing and deployment • Strong grasp of automation tools • Data management skills • Comfort with collaboration, open communication and reaching across functional

borders



SOLUTIONS


SOLUTIONS



There is no one size fits all tool set. You must analyze your business requirements, your IT group, your budget, your legacy systems and workflows.


SOLUTIONS



Encourage self-service.

It’s efficient and cost effective.

Prior to 1916, if you went into a grocery store, you would have to present a list of the things that you wanted to buy to a store employee. The store employee would then escort you

around the store and gather the required items for you.

Piggly Wiggly Store: In 1916, Clarence Saunders changed all this when he invited his customers to gather the items they wanted themselves and present them to a cashier. This was so revolutionary that in 1917 the US patent office awarded him a patent for his "self-

service store". This spawned a chain of now 600 Piggly Wiggly self-service grocery stores.


SOLUTIONS



TIPS

• Ask the right questions of the tool providers

• Is it OS restricted? • Does it support the application platform we need to

support? • Can I extend capabilities via custom scripts? • How much infrastructure needs to be in place before I

can start using it? • Is it Agent Based, Agentless, or a Hybrid? • Does the tool have a Domain Specific Language or does

it use a standard method for describing work to be done?

Implement a configuration

management tool

SOLUTIONS



Implement continuous delivery/deployment

That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.3Implement an

application deployment tool

TIPS

• Find a tool that tracks behavior—from history to change logs–in ways that is meaningful for both dev and ops.

• Make sure that the application deployment tool you pick is compatible with your configuration management tool

SOLUTIONS



That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.4Select a

monitoring tool

TIPS

• Select tools that fit the culture, avoid trying to force culture to fit a specific tool.

• Look at every aspect of a business transaction – starting from the user experience, the application performance, how the application interacts with the infrastructure, and then finally what is the business impact and how is the business performing.




Datacenter

SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS




Data Center


A SSDC is a data storage facility where all infrastructure is and delivered as a service.

Deployment, provisioning, configuration, and operation is abstracted from hardware and implemented through software.

SOLUTIONS




Data Center


• Generally first adopted SDDC concept

• Fast and easy provisioning of compute resources

• Access to computing resources simplified

Cor

e C

ompo

nent

1 Virtualization

SOLUTIONS




Data Center


Cor

e C

ompo

nent

2 Software Defined Networking

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Automation with policy-driving storage provisioning

Non-automated storage environment VS

Cor

e C

ompo

nent

3 Software Defined Storage

Automation with policy-driving storage provisioning

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.1Consider cloud

computing as an alternative

• Improves the flexibility and scalability of infrastructure

• Improvements resulting from DevOps can be implemented quicker and at a lower cost

• Public cloud’s pay-as-you-go elastic data centers allow organizations to stand-up several data centers

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Automation with policy-driving storage provisioning2Automate. Automate. Automate.

• Better quality testing, often the first step of automated testing

• Allows Sys Admins to work on more interesting work

• Better hardware utilization

• Charge back / show back possible

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

That sets up the CIO in a role as a planner and a manager, not just the technician in chief.3Mature at a pace that

makes sense to your

organization

SOLUTIONS




Data Center


Develop a self

service portal

TIPS

• Make it easy to use• Understand the customer perspective• Provide clear and readable content• Offer multi-channel help• Measure its performance• Make it accessible




Datacenter

Adopt agile project

management

SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Adopt agile project

management


Born out of trying to find a better way to execute projects, DevOps relies on the foundation of agile to improve project execution and deployment and synergy.

• Agile makes the most of the improved feedback from DevOps (increases the value of DevOps)

• The quicker development of features improves buy-in to DevOps from operations personnel (Users get better tools quickly from their feedback)

No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the

main hostile force.

”

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Adopt agile project

management


DevOps spans the

entire development

lifecycle

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Adopt agile project

management

Worse, Iridium’s cell phone couldn’t make calls from cars, offices or other buildings since phones had to be used outdoors with a line-of-sight connection to the satellites. But the nail in the coffin was price. Instead of the 50

cents per minute for a regular cell phone, Iridium’s calls cost $7 per minute–

What happens without

continuous feedback?

The Iridium Phone Fail:

• 11 years concept to launch• Heavy• Inconvenient: Couldn’t make calls from cars,

offices or other buildings• Pricy: instead of the 50 cents per minute for a

regular cell phone, Iridium’s calls cost $7 per minute

The company burned its way through more than $5.2-billion because it fell in love with technology, succumbed to Waterfall product development and never bothered to ask, “What do customers want today?”




Datacenter

Adopt agile project

management


SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS




Data Center

Adopt agile project

management



TIPS

• Understand how the cost model changes affect accounting

• Don’t be afraid to look for money in business budgets

• Understand that there is upfront spend.• Consider cost vs. value: FinOps• Leverage cloud solutions like Azure or

AWS to lower the required OpEx and CapEx

KEY TAKEAWAYS

If DevOps is 75% culture, 25% tools, the culture can’t succeed without the appropriate tools.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Allow your company culture to dictate which tools are best for your organization.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Allow your company culture to dictate which tools are best for your organization.

While software defined data centers are important, you can gain the benefits through the cloud.

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