Stage 1

DevOps

3-minute read

The foundation of any digital transformation is DevOps—a methodology that pulls more stakeholders into development discussions and offers broader insights into how operations maintain software and infrastructure (and how customers and partners actually use the developed apps). The idea is to create a tighter feedback loop between teams and promote open lines of communication.

Deploy faster

Speed is a major advantage of DevOps. That's because it changes the approach of app development from an emergency, all-hands-on-deck push to a smoother, more sustainable iteration between group planning, development, testing, and deployment.

And when done right, DevOps brings with it tangible benefits, such as 2,555x faster lead times, 200x more deployments, and 24x faster recovery from failures.1 However, if you want to make the cultural changes necessary for DevOps to truly thrive, you'll probably have to change a few hearts and minds along the way.

Success Story

Intermountain Healthcare

Change is often a hard thing to sell. A lot of what we did was meet with our key business units and let them know some of the direction we thought we should take as a company. Part of that was moving from a proprietary solution to a more open solution that gives us more flexibility and choices.

Brett Lawson, Director of Infrastructure & Operations, Intermountain Healthcare

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Reinvent your culture

DevOps isn't achieved by adopting new technologies. It demands a shift in your culture.

DevOps breaks down the separation between developers, operations, and business stakeholders. It redefines the very concept of "team" to include everyone who shares in the life cycle of an app.

Whether your ultimate application architecture is a refined monolith or one built on distributed microservices, changing your team structure and supporting open communication is an absolute requirement for better efficiency.

90% of organizations attempting to use DevOps without specifically addressing their cultural foundations will fail.2


90%

So how do you implement DevOps, anyway?

Major changes can begin with very simple steps. And cultural shifts underpin all of the technological and process changes. If you're struggling to build a DevOps culture, try two things:

  1. 1 Have your developers spend the weekend with operations, watching a production rollout and learning what they go through.
  2. 2 Track how many steps or service tickets it takes for a developer to request a new virtual system.

Seeing how others function in their day-to-day environments can be a powerful way to encourage teams to change their processes or open up communication.

You can learn more about cultural change and DevOps by downloading the "Teaching an elephant to dance" e-book.

Cultural reinvention and DevOps form the foundation for digital transformation. And once you have that foundation in place, you're ready for stage 2: Self-service infrastructure.

Get the e-book Continue to Stage 2

E-book author

Burr Sutter

Product Management Director, Developer Products, Red Hat

Sutter creates middleware developer solutions for Red Hat clients. He's currently an Oracle Java Champion, and he's a founder of the Atlanta chapter of the IASA. A tech educator with 20+ years of experience, Sutter has spoken at numerous industry events around the globe.

For the full story, download the free e-book

"Teaching an elephant to dance"

  • 1 Kim, Gene, et al. “State of DevOps Report.” Puppet, 2016, https://puppet.com/resources/whitepaper/2016-state-of-devops-report.
  • 2 “Gartner Highlights Five Key Steps to Delivering an Agile I&O Culture.” 20 Apr. 2015, www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3032517.