Presentation given at DevOps Summit May 2013 in London.

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The Business Case for DevOps
Matthew Skelton
SoftwareOperability.com

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Who?
@matthewpskelton
Build & Deployment @ thetrainline.com
London Continuous Delivery meetup group
“How to make software work well
in Production”

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The Business Case for DevOps
definition
story
acronym
exploration
case study
book

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The Business Case for DevOps
Terminology
Technology shift
Software operability

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DevOps
“Highly Effective
Communication”

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DevOps?
Devs doing ops?
Ops doing dev?
Infrastructure scripting?
Special ‘DevOps’ team?

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DevOps
Devs doing ops
Ops doing dev
Infrastructure scripting
Special „DevOps‟ team
(etc.)
The only effective way of
delivering reliable 21st-century
web-based software systems

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DevOps = CAMS
Culture
Automation
Measurement
Sharing
John Willis (@botchagalupe)

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DevOps = CAMS
Culture
Automation
Measurement
Sharing
“Highly Effective
Communication”

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The Business Case for DevOps
Terminology
Technology shift
Software operability

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Technology Shifts

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“You can now install the latest
version of our product ordering
software onto your in-house
servers every 6 months from a
single CD-ROM”

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DevOps:
Do or Die*
* for web operations

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The Business Case for DevOps
Terminology
Technology shift
Software operability

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Operability
How well things work
in Production

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Operational Features
Non-functional requirements
Operational features
Operations folk are people too 
Operational and End-User features
prioritised together

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Poor Operability
• Unclear or missing log messages
• Limited hooks for monitoring
• Cascading failures
• “Fair weather” assumptions
• Lack of resiliency
• Unpredictable failure modes
• ...
• Wasted $$$$$

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No DevOps?
Poor Dev + Ops
communication & collaboration
 Poor operability
 Wasted $$$$

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Case Study – thetrainline.com
• Top travel booking website in UK (Hitwise, 2012)
• £1.2bn annual revenue
• 9 million+ visits per month
• Booking engines for many UK train operators
• Ticketing systems for Corporates and TMCs

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Case Study
A B C

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Case Study – Lessons
• Downtime costs money
• Operability is a key requirement
• Consider both software and teams
• Identify operational criteria early
• Draft run book from the Dev team
• Follow-up on incidents with Dev teams
• Schedule operational features alongside end-user
features
• ...

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DevOps
DevOps provides the
communication and cooperation
needed in order to deliver reliable
21st-century web-based software
systems

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Impediments to DevOps
• Capex/Opex split
• Project-driven development
• Product Owners not responsible for
the operational success of the
product/service
• Developers not on call for incidents
• Intermediaries between Dev and Ops

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Further Reading
• Niek Bartholomeus
http://niek.bartholomeus.be/
• “The Top 11 Things You Need To Know
About DevOps” – Gene Kim
• John Clapham (Nokia Entertainment)
http://www.infoq.com/articles/monthly-
devops-01-nokia

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The Phoenix Project

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Getting Started
Don‟t wait for business approval
“Hey, we need to move our software
applications from the desktop to the web”
“We don‟t need the web”
Start on a small project and deliver

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Today‟s Sessions
• Ron Gidron – faster, cheaper, safer deployments
• Stephen Nelson-Smith – Test-Driven Infrastructure
• Peter Eeles – DevOps and the Integrated Supply Chain
• Gary Valler – DevOps, agility, and Continuous Delivery
• Alex Papadimoulis – Implementing DevOps
• Dan North – Agile Techniques in System Administration
• Rainer Heinold – Learning from Open Source
• PANEL – Open and Inner Source Tools
• James Betteley – DevOps Anti-Patterns
• Kiffin Gish – Case Study: Agile & IT Ops

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The Business Case for DevOps
“Highly effective
communication”
Shift in technology
Operability

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Q & A
http://SoftwareOperability.com/ + @Operability
Thanks:
@johnC_bristol, @LordCope, @niekbartho, @perryofpeek, Unicom
Photo credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/{peterboden, vernhart, 86624586@N00, calsidyrose, barbourians, ginable,
blmiers2, simontaylor, coneee, 9479603@N02, charlenesimmons, practicalowl, 38019504@N04, jjcd7}
Wikimedia Commons, fullbodytransplant.wordpress.com, seanlabel.com,
cs680.cs.usfca.edu/lectures/overview, www.scientific-solutions.com,
thoughtsfromanobservationalist.wordpress.com,