YAPC::Asia Tokyo 2015 (Day 2) Follow-ups: http://www.koemu.com/blog/2015/08/24/yapcasia-tokyo-2015/ --- ABSTRACT --- "Take away the pain !" This is the keyword we defined to IT infrastructure operations two years ago. I work for MSP company HEARTBEATS (MSP: IT Infrastructure Managed Service Provider Company). At that time, IT infrastructure business was reached a turning point when IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service) was main currents of server system. Then, we need to change our business strategy from the traditional approach. This session, I'll talk about three themes as the person in charge of IT infrastructure operations, specially "Infrastructure as Code" that is only possible by MSP. 1: People WANT to talk about their problems 2: Involve closest person 3: Evaluating performance and beyond First, I did two dimensional analysis: "Pain" and "Feasibility Solution". There is no need of complex analysis ! Second, At HEARTBEATS, employee are all engineer except for general affairs. I'll talk about conclusive factor of choice of pilot project, and a way of corporate pilot project member each other, that include some failed. Third, we need to analyze of improvement operation. Because, wrong approach doesn't lead profit increase.

1. Simple steps and tips to
improve IT infrastructure
operations
2015-08-22 15:30-16:30
@ YAPC::Asia Tokyo 2015 (Day 2)
Yuichiro Saito (@koemu)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 1

2. Information
• Feel free to take photos, tweet, and blog
about this talk !
• Twitter hashtag: #yapcasiaE
• Slides will be uploaded to slideshare.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 2

3. About Me
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 3

4. Yuichiro Saito (@koemu)
• Software Engineer @ HEARTBEATS Corp.
(MSP)
• Specialty: Improve Engineering Productivity
• Work Experience: Stock analysis system
development, CMS, EC, NLP, Smartphone
game development, AR
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 4

5. Now on SALE !
Webアプリエンジニア養成読本
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 5

6. Question
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 6

7. What are you ?
• Software Engineer ?
• Operation Engineer ?
• Project Manager ?
• Other ?
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 7

8. TOC
• 0: Background
• 1: People WANT to talk about their problems
• 2: Involve closest person
• 3: Evaluating performance and beyond
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 8

9. 0: Background
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 9

10. About HEARTBEATS (HB)
• MSP (Managed Service Provider1
)
• 24/7 manned monitoring.
• Stable, secure, customer-centric service.
1
MSPAlliance, “Definition of Managed Services”, http://www.mspalliance.com/blog/
definition-of-managed-services/ (Web)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 10

11. In 2012
• External
• Raise of IaaS (AWS, etc ...)
• Easier to handle service instances with IaaS
(compared to on-premise).
• Internal: Environment within HB
• Manual operations.
• Oh, It's archaic :-(
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 11

12. 1: People WANT to talk about their problems
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 12

13. Changes
• More instances to operate than on-premise
era.
• Able to handle instances with software.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 13

14. Problems
• More overtime work
• Manual operations in the IaaS era !
• Decreasing efficiency
• Slow lead time.
• Delayed adoption of new technologies.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 14

15. Wow, this is sucks !
• Miss out on business opportunities.
• We must abandon our manual operations, or
else we will be left behind in the IaaS era.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 15

16. We need improvement
• But... improvement is inseparable from
resistance!
• But we still need to solve our problems.
• If I can make life easier for people, they will
be more susceptible to improvement.
• DeMarco said: "People can't embrace
change unless they feel safe."2
2
Tom DeMarco, “The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management”, Dorset House, 1997
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 16

17. Understanding the problem
• Find Hints
• We don't have comprehensive information.
• Identify "goal-reality" pairs3
• e.g.) Management principle (goal) -
Efficiency (reality)
3
Eric G. Flamholtz, Yvonne Randle, “Growing Pains: Transitioning from an Entrepreneurship to a
Professionally Managed Firm”, Jossey-Bass, 2000
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 17

18. Expectation
• "Inner Work Life"4
• Performance is affected by motivation.
• Motivation is affected by happiness.
4
Amabile, T.M. and Kramer, S.J., “Inner work life: understanding the subtext of business
performance”, Harvard Business Review, pp. 72-83, May 2007
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 18

19. Research
• Interview
• Questionnaire
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 19

20. Two types of difficult tasks
1. Short time commitment and many
repetitions.
2. Infrequent but long time commitment.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 20

21. Short time and TOO MANY repeat
Cause
• Inefficient manual operations.
• Operating environment is not automated.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 21

22. Few repeats but LONG time
Cause
• Requires manual operation, lack of sharing of
information.
• The replacement personnel runs into
unexpected trouble due to lack of
communication during transition.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 22

23. Analysis parameters
• Two factor
• Difficulty
• COST
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 23

24. What's HARD ?
• Mental stress
• Workload
• Short lead time
• Dependent on individual skills
• Technical unfeasible
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 24

25. What's COST
• Preparation cost
• Development cost
• Introduction, training cost
• Cost impact to the organization
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 25

26. © Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 26

27. © Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 27

28. Our conclusion so far
1. People will be willing to change if they
understand that it will make their life easier.
2. Identify what is making their life difficult.
3. Prioritize according to difficulty and cost.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 28

29. 2: Involve closest person
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 29

30. Case study: hb-acns
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 30

31. Developed internal product
• hb-agent5
: Automatic server building tool
• hb-gendoc: Automatic document building
tool
• Cacti bulk configuration tool
• hb-acns6
: Our topic !
6
Yuichiro Saito, “hb-acns - サーバ監視・メトリック取得設定の自動化システムのご紹介 - インフラ
エンジニアway”, 2015, http://heartbeats.jp/hbblog/2015/06/hb-acns.html (blog)
5
Yuichiro Saito, “hb-agent - 構築・監視項目検出自動化ツール hb-agentのご紹介 - インフラエンジ
ニアway”, 2015, http://heartbeats.jp/hbblog/2015/05/hb-agent.html (blog)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 31

32. What's hb-acns ?
• Automatic register to monitoring system
(Nagios, Cacti).
• Free ALL engineers from the pains of manual
configuration.
• Preconfigureed rules can be converted into
scripts.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 32

33. Why ?
• Impossible to manually set up monitoring
settings for all IaaS instances.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 33

34. Two targets
• Small terms with many projects.
• Highest need for efficiency.
• Big terms with few projects.
• Easy standardization.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 34

35. Why don't use OSS ?
• We have:
• Multiple datacenters.
• Many customers with varying needs.
• An established operation workflow to meet
these need.
• The existing OSS was unsuitable.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 35

36. Opportunity
• We ware about to start a new project.
• The CTO and I decided that this would be a
pilot project.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 36

37. Plan of pilot project
1. Plan: Specifications, Preparation
2. Try: Develop, Test to use, Find Problem
3. Feedback: Interview, Questionnaire
4. Spread: Propagate, Improve
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 37

38. Tips of pilot project
1. Get CTO support.
2. Introduce merit.
3. Troubleshoot immediately.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 38

39. Get CTO support
• Initiative by CTO.
• Endorsement from CTO.
• Emphasize exective leadership.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 39

40. Introduce merit.
• Everyone is busy => Resistant to change
• Introduce merit, repeat and repeat.
• What is improve task ?
• Which of my jobs wolud be improved ?
• Let people know that it can be done !
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 40

41. Troubleshoot immediately
• There will always be unexpected trouble.
• If the response is slow, people will stop trying.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 41

42. Propagate
• Documentation
• Can use him/her self DIY solutions.
• Hands-on demonstrations7
• Solve the fears of weakness DIY solutions.
• Spread to nearly all of staff (over 40) :-)
7
Yuichiro Saito, “ツール普及のために社内ハンズオンに取り組んでみた - インフラエンジニアway”,
2014, http://heartbeats.jp/hbblog/2014/11/handson.html (blog)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 42

43. (hb-acns chat ops)
• That is executed every day.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 43

44. Our conclusion so far
• Plan -> Try -> Feedback -> Spread
• Get CTO support
• Hands-on workshops lower entry barriers.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 44

45. 3: Evaluating performance and beyond
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 45

46. 3 weeks• Period of development.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 46

47. 3 months
• The beggining of the pilot project to the
hands-on workshops.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 47

48. 1/10 times
• Lead time of monitoring setup.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 48

49. Workload time reduced >>
Time invested in development
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 49

50. Cost performance
• Increase profitability
• Reduce monitoring setup and update time.
• Increase profit
• We can get more customer by saving time !
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 50

51. Side effects
• People understood that ...
• Programming will increase efficiency.
• They can write code, too !8
8
Ryota Yoshikawa (@rrreeeyyy), “Infrastructure as Code の始め方 // Speaker Deck”, Open Source
Conference 2014 Tokyo/Fall, 2014, https://speakerdeck.com/rrreeeyyy/osc-20141018-
infra-as-code (Slide)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 51

52. Future goals
• Increase operation efficiency through
programming
• More in-depth study of programming.
• Solve problems by programming.
• Basis formed by operating skills (Tuning,
Middleware, Clarify the problem, etc ...)
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 52

53. Our conclusion so far
• Succeeded in improving operation
productivity.
• People recognized the need of programming
to improve operations.
• Programming improves operations efficient.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 53

54. Conclusion
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 54

55. Don't be afraid to change !
• People will accept growing pains if it will
make their lives easier.
• Hands-on workshops are great for reducing
barriers and anxiety.
• Programming improves operations efficient.
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 55

56. END
© Yuichiro Saito (@koemu), 2015 56