your software: faster. stronger. better. - big bark … by its very nature disrupts these silos as...

Introduction

The digital age we now live in demands a pace of delivery to market unheard of ever before. Delivering

new or enhanced software to market rapidly can keep your business relevant, delight your customers

and ensure you stay ahead of your competition.

Historically businesses have worked in silos, with developers working very separately to other departments.

Whilst existing processes will have served an organisation well in the past, this silo approach drastically

reduces the ability to compete in today’s rapidly developing and demanding markets.

DevOps by its very nature disrupts these silos as it requires all teams - Development, QA and Operations

- to collaborate, communicate and work in a more cohesive way, allowing organisations to be enabled

through software. DevOps can make a real, tangible and positive difference to your development and de-

livery lifecycle. In this guide we look to introduce the relatively new concept that is DevOps and how it can

benefit your business.

Daemon Solutions Ltd. T: +44 (0)800 0463987 E: [email protected]

Your Software: Faster. Stronger. Better.


What Is DevOps?

Like any new term, sometimes contradictory inter-

pretations can be used until it becomes established

and more mainstream. DevOps is a relatively complex

concept and because of that it doesn’t have a simple

definition. It means different things to different peo-

ple but fundamentally it is a philosophy and way of

working that stresses communication, collaboration,

integration, automation and measurement with the

purpose of creating and delivering software applica-

tions to customers.

Perhaps it is easier to immediately clarify what Dev-

Ops is not; It is not no ops at all; it is also not just tools

to automate processes, testing and the like; neither is

it just the implementation of a cultural change within

an organisation; or just a collaboration with Develop-

ment and Operations alone.

DevOps by its very nature is constantly evolving and

changing, so there are no hard and fast rules. Don’t

see that as a negative though, far from it in fact as

DevOps is having a massively positive impact across

many industries already and this will continue to

gather pace as it matures as a technology manage-

ment approach.

At Daemon Solutions we believe that DevOps in its

purest form is an entire organisation pulling in the

same direction to rapidly deliver high quality software

products and reduce costs. However, to achieve this

state of DevOps utopia requires the letting go of old

methodologies and a universal willingness to truly

embrace a new way of working. One of the key chal-

lenges for any enterprise is how to implement Dev-

Ops whilst continuing to deliver change throughout

the business.

“Dev” encompasses all the people involved in

developing the software including Product and QA

amongst others, whilst “Ops” includes systems en-

gineers and administrators, operations staff, release

engineers, DBAs, network engineers, security profes-

sionals and the rest. Simply put, for truly successful

DevOps implementation within an organisation, it is

everyone collaborating throughout the entire lifecy-

cle, with the understanding that software isn’t finished

until it’s launched to market and successfully meets

customer expectations.

What Is DevOps?


Why DevOps?

DevOps does closely resemble both Agile and Lean

approaches. However, the historic view of “Dev” and

“Ops” working in their own silos, and the ensuing

negative impact that has had on software delivery to

the customer, has seen the advent of DevOps which

extends Agile and Lean principles to encompass the

entire software delivery lifecycle.

It involves numerous techniques, multiple roles within

an organization and lots of intersecting technologies,

which means there has already been a huge range

of tools developed with the goal of facilitating con-

figuration, management, orchestration, monitoring,

virtualisation and containerisation, amongst others.

As the DevOps world matures and continues to try

things, learn from them and fine-tunes approaches,

we will see this range of tools created increase expo-

nentially to help make those approaches easier and

more consistent to apply.

Development with safe, manageable, easy to monitor

ways of getting software to the end user, without the

process always being a major project.

Providing the infrastructure for a DevOps enabled or-

ganisation can require a lot of thought, planning and

activity prior to implementation, for example, consider

a multi-site enterprise – they will need to develop

either their own automation or customise off-the-

shelf- tools to meet the needs and demands of the

business before DevOps can be embraced. Exactly

what capabilities your Operations function provides,

will vary greatly depending on your products and

your organisational structure.

Be clear on one thing - there is no DevOps quick fix.

To truly embrace DevOps is to change ways of work-

ing, only then will the true benefits be clearly appreci-

ated and the results speak for themselves.

To really embrace DevOps you need to understand

all the layers that go into it, and what a given

DevOps implementation might look like, depending

on the requirements of your organisation. Therefore

there is no “one size fits all” in terms of how you im-

plement it. What is generic is the need for the initial

decision makers who wish to introduce it to your

business to fully understand the values, principles,

methods and practices of DevOps and then get man-

agement buy-in. Without that top-down approach

to introducing cultural change, which is what truly

embracing DevOps principles is all about, it can never

really deliver on its full potential within an organisa-

tion.

In any organisation intent on implementing a DevOps

approach, Operations will need to embark on a cer-

tain amount of software development, to create units

of automation that make the operations side of the

organization run more independently and provides

DevOps - the reality


What are the benefits of DevOps?

●●• The creation of very few barriers between coder and user

●●• Software releases are more frequent and more rapid to deliver

●●• Everyone involved both understands and shares the same end goal

●●●●●• A company-wide culture of trust and collaboration is introduced

●●• Tighter integration of application lifecycle phases

●●• Collaboration delivers the ability to monitor the end user experience


The reality of implementing DevOps

DevOps gets a lot of press these days and there are

a lot of different opinions on how a “DevOps project”

should be implemented.

The key to successfully implementing DevOps within

your organisation is in recognising it is not confined

to just technology and automation. To realise the full

potential of DevOps and reap these benefits requires

significant cultural change and the implementation

and acceptance of new working processes, functional

and operating models. Working with a partner organ-

isation with considerable experience in implementing

DevOps across a range of businesses, both in terms

of size and sector, could ensure your company pos-

itively embraces that change and can achieve a real

competitive edge in your specific markets.

Daemon Solutions can work with you to achieve this

by utilising our proven, high-energy agile approach:

Step 1: AssessWe conduct a high-level assessment of your existing

capabilities and potential benefits. This sets out the

costs/benefits case for wider engagement of DevOps

throughout your organisation. Timescales: 3-5 days.

Step 2: DiscoverThis is a 4-6 week detailed review with a team of our

consultants working with you to fully analyse your

existing processes, capabilities and culture. This is

where we agree the backlog for the delivery phase.

Step 3: DeliverUsing Agile, we work in partnership with your teams

to implement the agreed DevOps improvements.

Depending on the scope of these, the project times-

cales can vary but as a guide 3-12 months.

Typical Discovery Scope:

• Current practices (source control, branch & merge

strategy, defect management, code build &

deployment)

• 3rd party supplier development practices

• QA and testing practices including frameworks

and tools

• Environment build and management practices

• Service Operations processes

(eg. Release/ Change Management)

• Project process and pipeline

• Solution architecture and boundaries of

CI/CD solutions

Typical Discovery Outcomes and Deliverables:

• Documentation of problem statements and

relevant findings for the discovery scope

• CI/CD competencies & capabilities to address

problem statements & findings

• CI/CD roadmap, showing anticipated timelines

for CI/CD capabilities delivery

• Definition of workstreams for CI/CD

capabilities delivery

• Statement of quick wins & expected benefits

• High level project plan for delivery of quick wins

• Agreement for benefits metrics & measurements

Assess Discover Deliver


Summary

DevOps is not something you do, it is an ethos that

needs to be embraced company-wide to ensure your

organisation becomes agile enough to rapidly respond

to customer demands, market conditions, competitive

pressures and regulatory requirements.

If you wish to explore the tangible business benefits

that DevOps can deliver, we are currently offering a

no obligation, fact finding consultation to

demonstrate how you could gain real value from

your investment in DevOps with Daemon Solutions.

Please contact us on +44 (0)800 0463987

or [email protected],

alternatively search for Daemon Solutions

on the g-cloud digital marketspace.

your software: faster. stronger. better. - big bark … by its very nature disrupts these silos as...

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