DevOps in the Cloud: The Perfect Recipe for Continuous Delivery
If you’re committed to DevOps as part of a continuous delivery model, should the cloud be part of your game?
The world is changing fast. Ford has Tesla in its rear-view mirror. Taxicabs are giving way to Uber. Hotels are under threat from Airbnb. Samsung is snapping at Apple’s heels. The global terrestrial hit TV program Top Gear is re-launching as a digital-only, on-demand broadcast service via Amazon.
Against this backdrop, you are either agile and adaptive, or you don’t exist at all. To win the digital transformation race, you need to be flexible while developing compelling new products and services that thrill your customers, advancing new innovations that take you a step ahead of competitors, as opposed to following in their wake and launching mobile-based apps that deliver customer convenience and loyalty to your brand.
Todd DeLaughter of Automic
Two technology imperatives set the framework for this agility: the cloud and DevOps. The cloud is the more familiar to us all, and the one every organization is moving towards in the quest for flexibility and agility. The cloud enables new services to be launched more quickly. There’s no need to provision complicated IT infrastructures, for example, you simply buy into the performance and capacity you need. Over the phone with your credit card, if you so choose.
The other imperative in the race for digital transformation is DevOps. DevOps is a collision of two related trends. The first is also called “agile system administration” or “agile operations.” It sprang from applying newer agile and lean approaches to the work of IT Operations. The second is an expanded understanding of the value of collaboration between development and IT operations staff throughout the service development lifecycle, and how important IT operations has become in our increasingly service-oriented world.
Why DevOps in the Cloud Makes Sense
The best place for DevOps is in the cloud. In fact, the cloud and DevOps are mutually dependent strategies required for delivering business value through IT.
Why is this? First of all, the cloud reduces the waste associated with DevOps. Make no mistake, DevOps can demand a large number of shared development and test data environments: many of them provisioned in expensive physical infrastructures with teams fighting over finite resources. The cloud offers a more cost-effective and flexible infrastructure — all the way from development to production. IT organizations don’t need to wait to use cloud in production, whether private or public. They can use tools like Vagrant and Docker to improve productivity on top of desktops and shared test infrastructures.
Second there’s the speed. DevOps helps organizations deliver change reliably and frequently. Meanwhile, production support needs to understand what that change involves — from the business rules at the top, to the infrastructure at the bottom. Put DevOps in a cloud environment and you benefit from faster cross-functional collaboration, comprehensive version control and automation that supports change management.
Third, the cloud can make or break a DevOps strategy. Most companies are looking to deploy applications in hybrid cloud environments. To support this, a DevOps package needs an interface with the cloud provider’s management system. DevOps in the cloud gives you standardized and transparent access to resources via APIs, which in turn breaks down the walls between different applications and back-end services. Look at it this way: Your virtual platform must be as adaptable and scalable as the applications you are deploying, otherwise you won’t keep up with the demanding delivery requirements.
Cloud computing, agile development, and DevOps are interlocking parts of a continuous delivery model. And a strategy for transforming IT into a business enabler. If cloud is an automotive chassis, DevOps can be considered the V8 engine that drives it.
Todd DeLaughter is CEO of Automic, a business automation software company.
