10 traps to avoid during a devops transition

@AlainDELAFOSSEEric MATTERN

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DevOps begins

DevOps OperationsAgileMethodologies

Business Developers

DevOps started on interaction between developers and operations

Release

Analysis

Dev &

Bugfixing

Tests

Deployment

Changes

Monitoring

Incident detectionAnalysis

ProblemManagement

3

Trap 1- Think it’s only tooling

Processes

Culture

Tooling

4

Trap 2- Start with the wrong tooling strategy(1/2)

•Manage and deploy OS & Software images

•Less flexibility

•Infrastructure and Deployment Coverage

•Automate deployment using a market solution

•Stick on requirements

•Numerous bricks available

•Requires Integration work

-A-

Build own

solution

-B-

Deployment

Tool

-C-

Appliance

Images

-D-

Adopt PAAS

Approach

DependencyManagement:

Middleware and OS

5

Trap 2- Start with the wrong tooling strategy(2/2)

Clone Configure Develop Package Configure Deploy

Infrastructure / OS Software

-A- Build own solution

-B- Deployment tool

-C- Appliance images

-D- PAAS

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Trap 3- Think only server deployment (1/2)

OS & SoftwareConfiguration items

Software components

and middleware dependencies

OS & SoftwareConfiguration items

Software components

and middleware dependencies

Infrastructure configuration and provisioning

Deployment orchestration

OS & SoftwareConfiguration items

Configuration ManagementConfiguration Management

Software Deployment

Software Deployment

Platform Deployment

Platform Deployment

7

Trap 3- Think only server deployment (2/2)

CFEngine

Puppet

Chef

FabricAnsible

Capistrano

Control Tier

Salt

RunDeck

FuncmCollective

8

Trap 4– Trying to automate data & database

� Database schemes and data are tricky to automate

● Upgrades and rollbacks

� Not an infrastructure size challenge

� Configuration challenge: failover, replication, logs, crons, backups.

� Automation make sense but update process is challenging: clean install every time with migration scripts

� Think about new database schemes ? new databases where structure is easier to update ?

Try to uncouple database changes from code changes

9

Trap 4– Trying to automate data & database

Databases and Data are tricky to

automate

Upgrades/depmixing data and

DDL

Rarely an infrastructure size

challenge

Config challenge: failover,

replication, logs, crons, backups.

Try to uncouple database changes from code changes

New database schemes ? NoSQL databases where data structure updates are easier

Mixing data and DDL and DML, scripts updates, duration

10

Trap 5- Rebranding teams/persons as DevOps

Re-name teams

Setting DevOps as title or function

Create a new team

Forget the name

Empower your teams to foster the transition!

Don’t Do

11

Trap 6- Underevaluate the cultural shift

CollaborationLong and difficult

journey

Devops cultural aspects

• Sense of continuousimprovement

• Collaboration level

• Transparency

Re-use AGILE transitions practices

12

Trap 7- If you don’t measure it, you can’t value it

Define goals Find metrics Expose KPI’s

• Deployment metrics examples :

• Deployment rate and delay

• Releases quality: number of rollbacks

• Rollback delay

• Effort and delay for configuration update

• Dev/ops releases ratio against number of servers/components/releases

• …

Contextualizemetrics to

your goal and context

Evaluate progression & share the success

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Trap 8- Forget continuous improvement loops

Capture Feedbacks

• Regular internaluser meetings

• Pair deploying

Formalize and categorize

Process evolution/Tools bugfixes or improvements

Backlog

• Milestones and prioritization

Improve

• Implement and deploy

� Devops is a endless journey

� Setup a continuous improvement loop : tools and processes

Don’t specialize resources on maintenance, think transversal and collaborative: virtual team.

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Trap 9- Focus only on deployment process

MonitoringSucks

•Common dashboards usingOPS,DEV and BIZ metrics

•Stop servercentric

•Logs management

•Monitoring==test (cucumber)

Performance management

•Continuous integration with automatic stress tests and performance analysis plugins

•Scalability and Capacity management

•AutomaticScaling

Incident/Problemmanagement

• Bring dev into ops room when incidents are popping.

• Capture production logs and expose to dev.

BCP/DRP design

•Collaborative design of the business continuity and disaster recovery plans

•Cloud BCP hot deployment

Security management

•Continuous integration with flaw detections plugins

• There are other processes /areas where collaboration between dev

and ops make sense.

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Trap 10– Conflict with

�Some production environments do require strong service management

�Devops doesn’t enforce a specific organization or processes

�Devops will seed the ITIL processes by bringing new tools and new practices

ITIL Process New tool New practices

Change management Configuration updates automation through Chef,Puppet

Automatic change logging and audit

Release and Deployment management

Software deployment tools Continuous deploymentBlue/Green deployment

Capacity management Platform deployment tool (Coupling IAAS+ Software deployment)

Live scaling

Service Continuity management

Platform deployment tool (Coupling IAAS+ Software deployment)

Cold BCP deployment through platform deployment automation

Thank You…

….Questions ?

Contact : Eric MATTERN emattern@objetdirect.com