In APMdigest's exclusive interview, David Hurwitz, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Serena Software, discusses the challenges and advantages of DevOps.
APM: For those who may not be familiar, what is DevOps?
DH: DevOps is an IT movement to deliver better communication, interaction and productivity between Development and Operations. The aim is to bring these two traditionally divided sides of the IT house closer together, bridging the divide between Development, which tends to concentrate on how features and functionality of the software are pushed forward, and Operations with its focus on reliable performance and delivery of these applications.
APM: DevOps seems like it should have been considered a good idea years ago. What has changed recently in our industry that has made DevOps such a hot topic today?
DH: The waning tolerance for application errors and the faster pace at which software/online services must be developed and delivered are already huge drivers to the introduction of new methodologies in Development and Operations. But to enable even faster hand-overs and meet these cost reduction targets, the intersection where Development meets Operations requires a re-think in its own right.
APM: What are the main barriers today that keep development and operations from working together?
DH: A primary challenge to DevOps is the way in which the handoff between Development and Operations is managed. Even though the trend is for companies to move to development automation, few can link all of the critical stages of the application delivery process.
However, Gartner reports that as software demands become more complex, and the teams working on these applications grow in number, the individual management practices for each stage of Development and Operations are being forced to evolve into more automated and linked up processes. So the issues surrounding handoff might actually slowly resolve themselves through sheer necessity.
APM: Does DevOps usually require a corporate culture change?
DH: It requires accountability on the part of developers to see their code through to successful production. Of course, that is only a reasonable proposition when they are given the necessary visibility and are able to depend on a fast and agile deployment process.
APM: How does a company go about starting a DevOps initiative? Is this something that can be homegrown or do they need a consultant?
DH: Many companies are finding that their existing Release Management and/or Change Advisory Board functions are morphing into DevOps initiatives. Thus the initiative can be homegrown. However, it requires automation to succeed at anything other than a micro level. The automation almost certainly has to come from outside, as the required process and deployment orchestration is considerable. The good news is that off-the-shelf release management solutions are now available that solve these problems in depth.
APM: What role can development teams play in application performance? What can they do to improve app performance in the development stage?
DH: It is not just application performance that dev teams need to concern themselves with. Rather, they need to think about how to architect their apps so they can be deployed easily, can be configured while in production, and so that there is traceability back into requirements. That said, DevOps thinking and staffing should provide developers with critical insight into application performance, thus guiding developers to the creation of performance enhancing changes, which can then be quickly deployed.
APM: As part of DevOps, should the operations team be providing more guidance to the developers?
DH: Sure, there should be more collaboration between Ops and Dev. Ops can provide “last mile” feedback to Dev about how architectural and design choices affect both deployment and runtime requirements.
APM: What basic advantages can a company gain if Dev and Ops work together more effectively?
DH: Speed and agility are the main benefits of Dev and Ops working together more effectively. This matters because most systems where DevOps is employed are mission-critical online services, e.g., they are how customers spend money with the company, or get customer care, or other fundamental mission enablement.
Because these systems are externally facing, they need to be revised regularly to keep ahead of the competition and customer expectation.
An enterprise that lacks the speed and agility of DevOps is bound to lose customers to faster moving competitors.
APM: What technologies support a DevOps approach?
DH: Release management technologies most directly support DevOps. These include the ability to automate the workflow around release planning and control, to securely manage a release package’s path to production, and to automate the actual deployment process. The first of these provides the visibility and confidence to operate at an accelerated cadence. The second ensures that release packages are known and pristine. The third slashes the labor and elapsed time for deployment, yielding tremendous cost, agility and quality benefits.
APM: Do you have any predictions on how DevOps will evolve in the near future?
DH: DevOps will become mainstream in all on-line business in the next year or two, albeit not necessarily with the title of DevOps. But the need for speed and agility required in online businesses means that the traditional silos of Dev and Ops must be brought together in organizations that expect to compete in the market.
IT management vendors are starting to compete for this important domain, leading to attractive automation solutions for DevOps practitioners.
ABOUT David Hurwitz
As Senior Vice President of Marketing at Serena Software, David Hurwitz leads Serena's marketing initiatives, including product marketing, communications, campaigns, sales readiness and field marketing. Hurwitz has a quarter century of experience in the enterprise software industry, the last decade of which as a marketing leader. Prior to Serena, Hurwitz served as VP of Corporate Messaging and Solutions Marketing at CA, Inc. He joined CA via its 2005 acquisition of Niku Corporation, where he was Chief Marketing Officer. Hurwitz also founded and ran Product Lifecycle Management pioneer ConsenSys Software Corporation. He began his software career by creating several MANMAN products as an engineer at legendary Silicon Valley company ASK Computer Systems. Hurwitz holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
