McDevOps and DevOps Design Strategy
- by Asher Bond
What is DevOps?
DevOps is the strategic intersection of technical quality assurance, technical operations, and development. In most implementations or attempts to achieve DevOps synergy, Development refers to innovative software engineering, but may also refer to other innovation such as creativity. The DevOps movement got rolling because people with a dedication to productivity became frustrated with tossing packages over the wall of confusion between Development and production operations.
Developers have a stake in the innovation game any time they are hired to be creative, artistic, or re-engineer that which could be improved upon. Those who are paid to do something new often find their interests in conflict with production operations engineers who are paid to operate within a reliable, proven framework. These production operators are members of a highly available infrastructure. DevOps solves this problem by crushing the wall of confusion with the hammer of integration, held by stakeholders in the environment of shared responsibilities. When changes are managed in such a way that there is shared responsibility for concept-proven, tested, quality assurance many benefits emerge. One benefit is that production engineers no longer have to re-hack the developer’s deliverable in a production environment. The production environment becomes adaptive to proven concepts within an ecosystem of collaboration. Collaboration is like competition on steroids, especially in the fields of shared interest where quality is upheld and orchestrated by multiple groups.
Quality assurance can be achieved through collaborative testing. Rolling back to a last known good configuration/implementation is much less necessary when it’s efficient to roll forward to a tested configuration/implementation. This is made possible by technology, of course. Technology is the study, practice, and pursuit of productivity through tools. A technologist seeks to invent tools or teach those around him the way to use a tool or tool-set. In a tightly integrated DevOps core with sustainable gravity, responsibility and tool-sets are shared among authoritative stakeholders in an iterative project. DevOps is much more than just an AGILE cat’s finesse. It’s the Chef’s best. Get Served.
Welcome to McDevOps may I take your order?
McDevOps is the Management of changing DevOps. Configuration management is nothing new or simple, but it becomes artistic without a framework for best practice automation. Here’s why:
Automation can only be profitable in situations where human error introduces significant risk or antiperformance. Antiperformance often exists in situations where a reverse engineer has re-invented a wheel which cannot possibly spin faster. Be advised, however, that it may be considered hasty speculation for a reverse-engineer to paint his or herself out of the Innovation picture in fear of could-be antiperformance. Innovation does indeed require both grit and grid. Let’s not overlook the problem of Semi-automation introducing risk when transparency is lost among service layers. Service-oriented Architecture is not resilient if foundations are simply service level agreements. Solid Service-oriented foundations are built from a lot more grit in the bricks.
Feedback looping, testing, dogfooding, metal and electricity create a fine mix and anything built from it becomes infrastructure, but perhaps only elastic provision can efficiently and effectively automate the process and balance the scale.
The design process never ends, which may seem counter-intuitive to the designer who is unfamiliar with iterative process momentum. Let me assure you that counter-intuition is key to innovation, especially in design practice. Iteration is often the seed of momentum, but many branches require many roots.
Quality may be challenging to control, but design principles make it very possible to contrive. Be aware that in some production environments, a tightly coupled or performance-oriented DevOps core may unfortunately exclude feedback at times, but should create a gravity of production insights from all three inner circles. Collaboration is like competition on steroids. The alternative is advancement along the production curve at the expense of innovative development and best practice designs as deliverables. In order to deliver cutting edge services, a service-oriented architect or Agile DevOps must bleed on the edge.
What framework will be designed as a platform for success in your sphere and how might the wheel spin faster, more efficiently, and more effectively?
