DevOps: It's a Different Animal

Any time I think about the challenges involved in adopting DevOps at the enterprise level, I reflect on a couple of breakout sessions that I attended at Interop ITX 2017 back in May. In each case the meeting rooms were packed with attendees.

Yet, when those attendees were asked about the state of DevOps in their organization, only maybe 10% or 15% had DevOps in production. Most people were there just to learn what DevOps is about, understanding that their organizations planned to adopt DevOps, and that, as the ones who had to implement it, they had to learn about it -- fast.

If you are still in that learning stage when it comes to the DevOps concept, take heart; you aren't alone. A DevOps initiative is complicated. It isn't just about learning a bunch of technical terms and rolling out some products. The concept comes with the additional challenge of bringing diverse groups of employees together with the common goal of developing the best possible applications.

It might be tough enough to draw software developers and operations staff into the same team. (Yes, they have been known to finger point at each other when systems go bad.) You'll also need to bring security pros into the team, even if you don't call it DevSecOps. Plus, in an agile environment, you'll be spending plenty of time with business unit leaders and even end users, your stakeholders. The days are long gone when stakeholder input was limited to project spec and user acceptance. Now, it's on ongoing relationship, an iterative process.

DevOps isn't a tech trend, it's a new business model.

So, let's take a look at where you and your peers are in implementing DevOps. Our new InformationWeek Flash Poll, DevOps Progress in the Enterprise, is your opportunity to evaluate your own organization's status with DevOps and then compare it with what those in other organizations are saying.

I hope you will vote in the poll and maybe share a comment with some thoughts on this emerging concept. We look forward to hearing what you and your peers have to say.