Building a true DevOps culture: Getting the foundations right
From the very beginning, there needs to be a focus on breaking down silos
Since the term 'DevOps' was first coined over a decade ago, its movement has grown exponentially. By bringing together development and operations it enables businesses to build, test and deliver new software and applications at a faster and more efficient pace. However, whilst its popularity continues to rise, getting DevOps right is far from easy.
In fact, IDC research indicates that by the end of this year, 80 per cent of European organisations will adopt DevOps, but only 10 per cent will excel in terms of accelerated performance and delivery cycles. Whilst there is a clear ambition within the industry to adopt this new way of working, it's also clear that there is much to be done before it'll become an effective methodology that delivers sustained positive outcomes.
The fact is, when it comes to DevOps, many businesses fail at a foundational level. From the very beginning, there needs to be a focus on breaking down silos and not just encouraging but also enabling collaboration. It is only then that businesses will be able to build and maintain a true DevOps culture.
A siloed landscape
At its heart, DevOps is all about removing barriers and increasing collaboration. Yet reaching this level of connectedness is often considered aspirational, especially in large businesses in regulated industries. This is because, over the years, legacy software has become complex and heavy. Teams need to make it lighter in order to move data faster and keep up with the ever-changing landscape. But, doing so, whilst still complying with restrictions and security measures, is challenging.
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For many companies, successful innovation begins with hiring developers and establishing initiatives which empower them to do their best work. One such initiative - which is proving particularly popular - is a ‘blameless culture'. In a blameless culture, everyone should feel safe and not be afraid to make mistakes. Developers should feel confident enough to express their ideas freely and take chances. They can build, own, ship code and ‘fail fast'.
However, it's hard for developers to truly make the most of these environments if they're reliant on a siloed operations team to service data for them. In such a scenario, data swiftly becomes a bottleneck which can then lead to apathy or even the large-scale failure of projects. This, of course, can be extremely problematic for organisations trying to innovate. Not only do data silos impact the speed at which developers can access data sets for testing, they also affect data quality and impede compliance.
Whilst developing a safe, blameless environment is important to the success of future projects, so too is setting up the data infrastructure for success. IT leaders know what they need to do in order to set their business up for success, but they often don't have the mechanisms and the right tools in place to facilitate that move. The fact is that rolling out DevOps deployments at an organisational level often requires lots of complex integrations between applications and systems that might not necessarily connect in a simple manner
Data for DevOps
This is where dedicated data platforms for DevOps can help. By delivering data into development environments at the same pace and level of automation as DevOps teams deploy code, these platforms can eliminate CI/CD bottlenecks.
A data for DevOps platform will integrate previously disparate data points - whether across different platforms, mainframes, mobile apps or cloud apps - and benefit from a single source of truth, all whilst increasing efficiency for developers. It will sync data from any application and provision it to test environments from any time, enabling teams to manage all data operations without compromising on compliance or security. It will also ease time travel for data, delivering virtual data on demand and automating all the bottlenecks. Organisations can use these platforms to implement a truly blameless culture for developers, empowering them to securely innovate and experiment.
One company already reaping the rewards of implementing a data platform is Michelin - one of the largest tire manufacturers in the world. It has leveraged API-driven data automation to improve production resiliency by 98 per cent and drive sustainable mobility and growth. By combining on-demand data delivery and an optimised CI/CD value chain the team has been able to achieve faster fault remediation and operations efficiency. In fact, their application downtime has been reduced from two days to two hours.
No matter how a business chooses to roll out the DevOps methodology, it is critical that the foundational data infrastructure is set up to enable collaboration between developers and operations. With many businesses traditionally operating in silos due to a multitude of factors - from cultural to technological - addressing the connectivity and integration of data across an organisation is key to underpin a successful DevOps environment. It is only then that businesses can build and maintain a true DevOps culture.
Steve Barrett is Senior Vice President, International Operations at Delphix