devops pipeline assessment faqs - microsoft azure · what do i get from the devops pipeline...
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DevOps Pipeline Assessment FAQs
DevOpsGroup 2018
Why do I Need a DevOps Pipeline Assessment?
DevOpsGroup’s approach for new technical client engagements is to initially perform a Pipeline Assessment. This is a short phase in which we understand technological challenges, explore automation related constraints and establish the needs of the software delivery pipeline(s).
Our DevOps Pipeline Assessment is aimed at enterprises that require an in-depth analysis of their automation technology. Typically, customers for this service will have elements of automation in place but wish to have their technology choices ratified or new tooling introduced to create best-practice Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. The service is suitable for organisations that do not require evaluation of their processes or operating models at this stage of their DevOps journey.
Our established Pipeline Assessment process involves a structured series of workshops that will help your team to address the following questions regarding your software delivery pipelines:
1. What are the IT goals for your automated pipelines?
We help to define your desired deliverables for the CI/CD pipelines and ensure that these objectives are aligned amongst all of the relevant IT stakeholders.
2. What is the status of your current automated pipelines?
We formally assess all seven stages of your software delivery pipeline: Plan, Code, Integrate, Test, Release, Deploy and Operate.
3. What additional work is required to meet your goals and what additional tooling is required?
We use the gathered information to make recommendations regarding the configuration of existing automation tools and suggest new tooling where appropriate. We will also highlight the required
technical training in order for your teams to use this tooling effectively.
4. How do you plan to build the required CI/CD pipelines?
We produce a strategic plan that documents how to move from your current technical environment to one with fully-automated, best practice CI/CD pipelines in place.
5. What are the timescales?
Our plan incorporates a roadmap of automated tooling adoption that includes predicted timescales to help set realistic expectations.
6. How much will it cost?
We provide budgetary financial costs in order to deliver the recommended automation tooling solutions.
The resulting report from the Pipeline Assessment imparts significant business value – it aligns the IT objectives of the initiative, provides transparency on existing capabilities, makes recommendations on appropriate tooling and clarifies the way forward to fully automate the software delivery process.
How is the DevOps Pipeline Assessment Delivered?
During the Pipeline Assessment we run onsite workshops over three consecutive days with a focus on the seven stages of your software delivery process.
Within each of these stages, a combination of semi-structured interviews, checklists, data analysis and work observation are used to help uncover information about the technology challenges. Each workshop is supported by a set of targeted questions. However, conversations are allowed to develop freely in order to learn more about the different aspects of IT as well as to uncover new challenges and points-of-view.
We have provided an overview on each of the workshop sessions below:
Inception
To initiate the Pipeline Assessment, we hold a half-day on-site Inception session where the scope of the engagement is discussed, the forthcoming agenda is run through, required attendees per workshop are agreed on and other practicalities are confirmed.
In this session, we also run a Goals Modelling session to understand the IT objectives for automation and determine if those goals are common and aligned across teams, roles and levels of the organisation. During this session we seek to establish a picture of where each team feels they want to be and what they are trying to achieve. By mapping deliverables to a goal, it becomes easier to align the IT teams. This simplifies the prioritisation process and enables the ability to limit work-in-progress, both of which are critical to successful IT delivery.
The goals modelling session is usually followed by a general discussion regarding the existing usage of technology so that we also gain a high level overview of the existing CI/CD pipelines.
Workshops
Typically two weeks after the Inception, we run workshops with a focus on the seven stages of the software delivery process. These workshops are conducted at your offices over three consecutive days. An overview of these sessions is detailed below:
Day 1 // Plan and Code Review
On the first day of the Pipeline Assessment we review your organisation’s capabilities around the Plan and Code stages of the software delivery process.
FunctionalOperational
CompileUnit Test
Code AnalysisPackage
InfrastructureApplication
Configuration
MonitoringAlterting
Notification
AutomationIntegrationUI Testing
PerformanceSecurity
PlanScheduleControl
Branching
DVCS
DependencyManagement
Pipeline Assessment Diagram
In the morning session we will run a planning assessment which covers the sources of your work, the methodology used to prioritise this work and the product management framework that is currently in place. In this session we will also walk through your feature/change management process.
In the afternoon session we will run a code management review to investigate subjects such as your source control practices and coding practices/standards.
Day 2 // Integrate and Test Review
On the second day of the Pipeline Assessment we review your organisation’s capabilities around the Integrate and Test stages of the software delivery process.
In the morning session we will review your Integration practices which covers metrics (such as frequency, scale and size) as well as the Integration practices and standards that are currently used. In this session we will walk through your Build and Integration process and also evaluate the Integration tools that are in place.
In the afternoon session we will explore your Testing coverage including an overview of your testing
methodology and test environments. In this session we will also review your class of tests (functional, operability-based including security) as well as an appraisal of the test tools that are being used.
Day 3 // Release, Deploy and Operate Review
On the third day of the Pipeline Assessment we review your organisation’s capabilities around the Release, Deploy and Operate stages of the software delivery process.
In the morning session we will review your Release and Deploy practices by gaining an overview of your release workflow and walking through your Deployment tasks. In this session we will cover your release metrics (such as elapsed time and success rates) and examine the governance and approval process. We will also conduct a step by step evaluation of a recent successful change.
In the afternoon session we will assess your live Operations by investigating subjects such as your production environment, business continuity/disaster recovery plans (including backup), incident and problem management processes, Service Level Agreements, uptime commitments and other customer obligations. In this session we will also explore a recent major incident and appraise your service operation teams and practices.
Report Presentation
Approximately three weeks after the Workshops have taken place, we will return to your offices for a half-day session where we present our findings and discuss our recommendations and next steps.
At this point we will also discuss the next phase of our client engagement model – “Validation”. In this phase we typically focus on one application (that we will have identified in the Assessment) and build a CI/CD pipeline specifically for this software as well as providing technical training for your team. The Validation phase will allow you to take a view of “what good looks like” for a fully automated real-world application running within your own environment, to prove the value of the automation initiative.
Example Goals Canvas
What Technologies are Covered?
DevOpsGroup has extensive knowledge, experience and vendor endorsement with a wide range of automation tools and we have detailed some of these below. However, where out clients have already invested in alternative software then we will optimise these existing platforms to make them as productive as possible.
Collaboration Tooling
We have extensive experience of implementing software development management tools such as Atlassian JIRA and collaboration tools such as Atlassian Confluence. DevOpsGroup is a certified Atlassian Partner. For source code management we have skills with GitHub (Partner) and Atlassian Bitbucket.
Automation Tooling
DevOpsGroup has significant capability and experience with automation technologies in both Microsoft and Linux environments.
Microsoft
Our consultants are highly proficient with the automation of Microsoft environments and have skills with Microsoft tools such as Virtual Studio Team Services (VSTS), PowerShell and Team Foundation Server (TFS). We work very closely with Microsoft and we hold the Gold DevOps Partner Accreditation. DevOpsGroup also works with third party automation vendors that are designed to operate in Microsoft environments such as JetBrains (Consulting Partner), Octopus Deploy (Consulting Partner) and Redgate (Certified Partner).
Linux
DevOpsGroup has wide-ranging experience of working with Linux based automation tooling. For example, we have strong core competencies with Jenkins, Hashicorp (System Integration Partner) Chef (Partner), Puppet (Partner) and Ansible (Tower Services Partner).
What Technologies are Covered? (Cont...)
Cloud Vendors
DevOpsGroup also works with multiple Cloud vendors including Amazon Web Services (APN Consulting Partner), Microsoft Azure (Gold Cloud Platform Partner), Rackspace (Partner), Century Link (Partner) and UKCloud (Partner).
Monitoring Tooling
DevOpsGroup works with monitoring tooling including Nagios, Sensu, Outlyer, ELK (Elasticsearch Logstash Kibana) and AppDynamics (Certified Partner).
What do I get from the DevOps Pipeline Assessment?
We have detailed the outputs from our Pipeline Assessment report below. Together, these form a comprehensive plan for implementing fully automated CI/CD pipelines:
1. Documented Goals
We capture and record all of the relevant IT objectives for the DevOps automation initiative.
2. Identification of Potential Improvement
We will highlight any gaps within your current software delivery pipelines.
3. Prioritised Next Steps
We run a risk/benefit analysis on the main potential areas of automation improvement and then prioritise
those that will deliver the greatest value with the least amount of risk to your organisation.
4. Roadmap
We produce a roadmap for DevOps automation adoption that includes predicted timescales to implement the recommended solutions.
5. Budget Estimates
We forecast the financial costs involved in delivering the recommended programmes of work.
All of this information will provide alignment between IT objectives, clarity on quick wins & existing problem areas, measurements to showcase success and a plan to implement fully automated CI/CD pipelines.
Kick-Off Meeting – Introductions & Agreement of
Schedules Goals Canvas
Pipeline Overview
Plan and Code
Integrate and Test
Release, Deploy Operate
Report and Presentation
The DevOps Pipeline Assessment Schedule
What is Included?
Deliverables
• Documented IT Goals
• Identification of Potential Automation Improvement
• Prioritised Next Steps
• Roadmap
• Budgetary Estimates
Report / Feedback
• PowerPoint Report
Business Value
• Alignment of IT Objectives
• Assessment of Existing Automated Pipelines
• Improvement Recommendations
• Budgeted Roadmap
