MacLochlainns Weblog

DevOps: Is it a mindset or process? That’s a big question for managers because while you can’t manage a mindset, you can manage a process. DevOps is actually a framework of processes.

Some actually say DevOps is actually a lot like making a patchwork quilt. You need to design the patches before you figure out how to stitch them together. I believe this is true, and base that on my experience as a release engineer at Oracle Corporation.

You need to adopt:

• An Agile system development life cycle that ensures you value outcome over process.
• A value stream that lets you track the efficiency and effectiveness of costs verses outcomes.
• A measurable development pipeline that tracks costs and outcomes.
• A management strategy that handles operational, tactical, and strategic goals.

Those are big goals to accomplish but how will you achieve them? I would suggest that you first try to understand the experiences of others who adopted a DevOps methodology.

I’d like to recommend The DevOps Handbook because it uses case studies to highlight the best practices in DevOps. They do use some engineering terms to describe things that could be simpler. For example, telemetry is a fancy word for plans but it strikes me they use the word for a purpose. The authors want to commit us to adopting a rigorous planned route before we implement DevOps approaches.

While I may not choose all the words they did to convey these ideas and case studies, they are consistent in their approach. Along the way, they introduce much of the supporting case studies one-by-one. Moreover, they demonstrate approaches taken to solve types of problems and leave the integration of ideas to us.

Here’s a layout of the book since the table of contents is missing on Amazon.com’s website.

• Part 1: How DevOps applies lean principles to technology
  • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Chapter 2: The Principles of Flow
  • Chapter 3: The Principles of Feedback
  • Chapter 4: The Principles of Continual Learning and Experimentation
• Part 2: Where to Start the DevOps Transformation
• Chapter 5: Selecting which Value Stream to Start With
• Chapter 6: Understanding the Work in Our Value Stream
• Chapter 7: How to Design Our Organization and Architecture
• Chapter 8: How to Get Great Outcomes by Integrating Operations into Daily Work
• Part 3: How to Implement Technical Practices for Continuous Delivery
• Chapter 9: Create the Foundations of the Deployment Pipeline
• Chapter 10: Enable Fast and Reliable Automated Testing
• Chapter 11: Enable and Practice Continuous Integration
• Chapter 12: Automate and Enable Low-Risk Releases
• Chapter 13: Architect for Low-Risk Releases
• Part 4: How to Implement Technical Practices for Fast and Continuous Feedback
• Chapter 14: Create Telemetry to Enable Seeing and Solving Problems
• Chapter 15: Analyze Telemetry to Better Anticipate Problems and Achieve Goals
• Chapter 16: Enable Feedback to Safely Deploy Code
• Chapter 17: Integrate Hypothesis-Driven Development and Testing
• Chapter 18: Create Review and Coordination Process to Increase Qualify of Work
• Part 5: How to implement Feedback to Drive Sooner, Faster, and Cheaper Results
• Chapter 19: Enable and Inject Learning into Daily Work
• Chapter 20: Convert Local Discoveries into Global Improvements
• Chapter 21: Reserve Time to Create Organizational Learning and Improvement
• Part 6: How to Implement Feedback on Achieving Information Security Goals
• Chapter 22: Information Security as Everyone’s Job, Every Day
• Chapter 23: Protecting the Deployment Pipeline

I hope this helps those looking for a good reference on DevOps.